


Rainbow Connections

by Shadowscast



Series: Enough Time [2]
Category: Once a Thief (TV)
Genre: Asexual Li Ann, Asexuality, Canadian Content, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Drag Queens/Kings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mac Has Nightmares, Nightmares, Organized Hate Groups, Party Like It's 1999, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Series, Problematic Drinking, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 09:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 104,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast
Summary: The Director sends Mac and Li Ann undercover in the gay community to protect a drag queen, while Vic infiltrates a right-wing group.  Meanwhile, Mac is a mess, Vic is on an unexpected journey of self-discovery, and Li Ann is coming to realizations about her own life and future.  And there might just be some cuddling in Mac's bed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to my thorough and endlessly helpful beta reader, Yourlibrarian!

**Christmas Day, 1998**

 

Vic flung open the door to his apartment. "Merry Christmas!" he greeted Li Ann and Mac.

They filed in and took off their boots and coats, casting him slightly dubious looks. Maybe the Santa hat had been a little much.

"Nice ... tree?" Li Ann said, tilting her head.

"Thanks!" Vic said cheerfully, choosing to take her words at face value.

The tree was a little scraggly, to be honest, but it had been one of the few left on the lot at 2:30 pm on December 24th, and hey, it had only cost him five bucks.

"Is this popcorn?" Li Ann asked, fingering one of the garlands. "That's ... creative."

Vic shrugged. "I didn't have any decorations."

Mac breezed by him to collapse on the couch. He hadn't taken off his sunglasses. "Ugh, what's that smell?" he said.

"Roast turkey," Vic said brightly, still holding onto his holiday spirit with grim determination. "And vegetables. It'll all be ready in twenty minutes." He'd timed the turkey for noon, with the plan that they could open presents first.

"Mac is a little hung over," Li Ann stage-whispered to Vic.

"What?" Vic palmed his forehead. "How? Why?"

Li Ann shrugged. "Dunno. He just called me half an hour ago and said he needed me to drive him here."

Vic could feel his fantasy of celebrating a homey, warm, family-style Christmas with Mac and Li Ann starting to slip through his fingers.

Granted, he'd only developed this fantasy around 11:00 am yesterday, when Mac had emerged from the Agency's infirmary with a clean bill of health, ending their week-long three-way sleepover at Li Ann's place.

Okay, so Mac was a little hung over. That didn't mean that Christmas was ruined.

Vic went to the kitchen and filled a big glass tumbler with water, which he brought back around to the couch. He sat down next to Mac and pressed the glass into his hand. "Here," he said. "Drink."

Mac obediently took a couple of delicate sips.

Vic wasn't letting him off that easy, though. "What the hell, man? You _just_ got through your concussion recovery."

"Yeah, and the doctor said I was fine. Ergo, I can drink."

Something about the exaggeratedly careful way Mac was holding the glass, and pronouncing his words—and the whiff of alcohol fumes when he spoke—"Mac," Vic said through slightly gritted teeth, "Are you _hung over_ , or _still drunk_?"

Mac paused, thinking the question through carefully. "A little from column A, a little from column B," he said.

"You've been _drunk_ since _last night_?" Vic said, somewhere between a moan and a growl. "You _knew_ I was doing Christmas dinner today." His feelings probably shouldn't be as hurt as they currently were, he knew. This was a slap-dash last-minute plan, not a treasured annual tradition. But still...

"Not since last night," Mac said. "Just since 4 a.m." He sipped at the water again, holding the glass in both hands. "I'll be sober soon. Promise. I won't ruin your party."

Vic was about to ask Mac what on earth he'd been doing getting drunk at 4 a.m. on Christmas eve, when all of a sudden he realized that he could probably guess. Shit.

"4 a.m., huh?" he said quietly. He glanced over to see if Li Ann was following their conversation, but she wasn't—she was over by the tree, curiously checking out the two wrapped presents. "Nightmare wake you up?"

Mac's shoulders hunched a bit. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Everything's fine."

Shit, shit, shit.

A week ago Vic hadn't known about the nightmares, so he wouldn't have worried. He just would've put Mac's inappropriate morning drunkenness down to his irresponsibility and immaturity—as, in fact, he _had_ , on multiple occasions, come to think of it.

But now Vic was aware that Mac experienced vivid nightmares on a regular basis. The last four nights at Li Ann's place, Vic had slept next to Mac for the express purpose of waking Mac up from those dreams before Mac's screaming could wake Li Ann. Vic had had to fulfill that purpose two nights out of the four.

Mac didn't want to talk about the dreams, and he _especially_ didn't want to talk to Li Ann about the dreams, and Vic had gone along with that. Apparently the dreams were nothing new for Mac, anyway. At some point in the past year the Director had put him on an antidepressant medication, which apparently, according to Mac, helped.

Okay. Everything wasn't fine, but there wasn't much Vic could do about it right now. And he did have to consider the significance of the fact that even though Mac must be feeling like crap, if he'd been up since 4 a.m. and drunk the whole time, Mac _had_ made the call to Li Ann so that he could get a ride to Vic's Christmas party.

So—on with the show.

Vic gave Mac's shoulder a vague pat. "Drink the water," he said. "Let's open presents."

Li Ann came back over, looking sheepish. "I didn't realize we'd be exchanging presents," she said.

Vic blinked. "It's a _Christmas_ party."

She held up her hands in helpless surrender. "I'm really sorry," she said. "I just didn't think of it. I've never done Christmas with you before."

"Last year we were on a stake-out," Mac said with a nod. "Remember? It was during my probationary period. The robotic taxidermists."

"Taxidermy robots," Vic corrected automatically, with a shudder of remembrance. "Okay, no problem. I got you guys presents, but you don't have to get me anything, it's fine. The spirit of the season is about giving, not getting."

"Oh, I brought presents," Mac said. "They're over in my coat pocket." Meeting Vic and Li Ann's surprised glances, he shrugged. "I went shopping yesterday afternoon, after Vic told me we were doing this."

Since Mac didn't seem inclined to move, Vic took the initiative and went over to the entryway where Mac and Li Ann had hung their coats on the wall hooks. He rifled through the deep pockets of Mac's stylish black wool coat, and came up with two small brightly coloured packages. "They're even wrapped," he said with surprise.

"There was a gift-wrapping stand at the mall," Mac said. "Very convenient." 

The one labelled 'Vic' was obviously, by its size and shape, a CD. Vic promised himself that he would act happy about whatever it was, even if—as seemed likely—it was some kind of obscure Icelandic electronically-synthesized whale music.

The one for Li Ann was a little more ambiguous; a small rectangular package, a bit heavy. A necklace, maybe?

Vic carried them over to the tree and tucked them under it.

"Uh, didn't you say we were going to open them now?" Mac asked.

"Yeah," Vic said. "Just give me a second."

He gazed contentedly at the tree, and at the four bright packages underneath. He took a deep breath, smelling the pine.

For the first time in far too many years, Vic was doing Christmas.

* * *

Mac's present to Li Ann wasn't a necklace, it was a Swiss Army knife.

"Nice," she said happily, checking the blades one by one. "This'll come in handy."

His present to Vic was the latest Tragically Hip album.

"Oh hey," Vic said with honest surprise and happiness, "I really like this band."

"I know," Mac said.

"And I don't have this album yet."

"I know," Mac said. "I went through your music collection one time when I broke into your apartment."

Li Ann raised an eyebrow at Mac. "Sweetie, you realize that's a little weird, right?"

Vic didn't think he could remember her ever calling Mac 'sweetie' before. Was this a new development, related to the kissing?

"Well it's not like he doesn't _know_ ," Mac said. "I stuck around until he came home. I just needed to talk to him about a case."

"You waited for me in my _bed_ ," Vic recalled, indignantly.

Mac shrugged. "You didn't come home for _hours_. I got tired."

"I have a _couch_ ," Vic pointed out. "You're lying on it now." At some point in the past couple of minutes, Mac's slouch had become a full-on lounge. Since Mac was taking up the whole couch, Vic and Li Ann were both sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the tree.

"Well," Mac said, "If I'd waited on the couch, it wouldn't have pissed you off nearly as much."

Vic decided to stop rising to the bait. "Here," he said, taking his own gift for Mac from under the tree and tossing it to him. "Open your present."

Vic had gotten Mac a winter scarf made of soft black merino wool, and he'd gotten Li Ann a pair of fur-lined black leather gloves.

Even as he watched them open the packages, Vic had some anxious second thoughts about his choices. He'd picked them because he'd noticed that neither Mac nor Li Ann had a lot of winter accessories—which was natural, considering that this was going to be their first real Canadian winter. They'd spent last winter in Vancouver, on the Director's temporary Pacific Rim task force; she'd only brought them back to her Toronto home base in April.

But maybe they'd find the gifts too practical and impersonal. It was true that Vic had been shopping in a hurry on Christmas Eve, so he hadn't had time to put a _whole_ lot of thought into them. Plus, with Li Ann he'd been working with the additional constraint of things-that-aren't-inappropriate-to-give-to-your-ex-fiancée.

"Thanks!" Li Ann said, pulling on her gloves. "They fit perfectly. Oh, and they're really comfortable."

Mac, meanwhile, had wrapped the scarf around his neck. "Nice," he said. "Very soft. Thanks."

Vic beamed.

* * *

The dinner itself went pretty well, all things considered.

The turkey came out a little dry, in Vic's opinion, but at least there was cranberry sauce.

As for the cranberry sauce, Mac and Li Ann both seemed leery of it to start with, but Vic convinced them to try it by promising to taste a deep-fried squid tentacle the next time they had Chinese food together.

"You won't regret it," Mac promised. "Oh, hey, this is actually good!"

Vic had been worried that hung-over Mac wouldn't want to eat very much, but actually the food seemed to sober Mac up, and perk him up. By the end of the meal he'd removed his sunglasses, and he was laughing and leaning back in his chair, looking relaxed. As for Li Ann, she had devoured a portion and a half of turkey, and even stolen some roast carrots from Mac's plate when he was too slow in eating them.

Vic had bought a bottle of wine for the meal, too, and then when Mac had shown up intoxicated he'd decided not to pull it out. When they'd been sitting down, though, Li Ann had asked about it—Vic had forgotten to clear the wine glasses away from the already-set table—and when Vic had explained his hesitation, as discreetly as possible, Li Ann had said, "Oh well, we just won't let Mac have any." Mac had given no more than a token protest.

So Vic had a couple of glasses of wine in him, as well as a nice full belly of turkey, when he looked at Li Ann and Mac over the remains of the dinner and said, "So are you two back together, then?"

He hadn't planned to ask. It just seemed like the right moment. Li Ann had just popped a piece of fruitcake into Mac's mouth with her own fingers.

Mac shot a questioning look at Li Ann.

"Um," Li Ann said. She'd had a few glasses of wine, too. "Sort of?"

"Sort of," Mac repeated ruefully.

"Sort of?" Vic asked.

"We're kissing," Li Ann said.

"I know," Vic nodded. He'd already known—they'd even talked about it earlier that week—and then Li Ann had given Mac a big kiss in front of everyone right after they'd survived Paul's attempt to kill them. "And?"

"There's actually not much _and_ ," Mac said.

"There's ... affection," Li Ann said. "It's liberating, to be able to show you affection again."

"Yeah," Mac said. He smiled at her. "That's nice."

"Do you think you might ... sleep together again? Eventually?" Vic asked, not without hesitation.

It was an intrusive question. But he'd had the wine.

"No!" they said in unison, looking equally appalled.

"Okay then," Vic said, blinking. "So, you're not ... _really_ together?"

"Well..." Li Ann trailed off.

"What does that even mean?" Mac asked.

Vic wasn't sure how the two of them could be quite so unclear as to whether they were dating or not. "For instance, would you be allowed to date _other_ people?" he asked, as a sample question of clarification.

"Yes," Li Ann said immediately.

"Really?" Mac said, looking at her.

"Well, _yes_ ," she said. "It's not like we're, you know. Intimate."

"So it would be okay with you if I went and had sex with someone else?" Mac asked.

Li Ann nodded. "Yes."

"Because I think I'd like to," Mac said.

"Who?" Li Ann asked.

Vic was also curious about the answer to that question.

"Well, I don't know yet," Mac said.

"So this is a hypothetical someone else?" Vic clarified.

"Unfortunately," Mac said.

"Well," Vic said, tilting his wine glass towards Mac, "Just try to pick someone who isn't a criminal, this time."

"God yes," Mac said.

Vic looked at Li Ann. "What about you?"

"What about me, what?"

"Do you think you'd like to date someone else besides Mac?"

She frowned, thoughtfully, and sipped at her wine. "I don't think I want to date anyone," she said.

"Ever?" Vic said.

"Well," she said, "Forever is a long time. I'm not sure. But right now—no."

"So Mac can have another lover, but you only want to kiss Mac?" Vic asked. That seemed kind of weird and asymmetrical.

"Well, not _only_ Mac," Li Ann said. And blushed.

Wait, what? Li Ann didn't _blush_. That was not a thing she did.

"Who else, then?" Vic asked.

"God, you're dumb," Mac said. "I say that with affection, of course. Since we're friends now and you gave me a nice scarf."

Vic looked back and forth between his friends—Li Ann blushing, Mac rolling his eyes—and understanding dawned. "You mean _me_ ," he said.

"I mean, it would be nice," Li Ann said. "I think. But you don't have to."

Vic's instinctive reaction was _Yes, please, take me back now!_ But he forced himself to think it through a little more carefully.

She wasn't talking about taking him back, not in the sense of re-kindling their old relationship. From the picture she and Mac had painted of what exactly _they_ were doing now, Vic understood that when Li Ann said she wanted to kiss him now, that wasn't a euphemism for wanting to jump into bed with him—she literally only wanted to kiss him.

And apparently that was a deal that Mac was willing to take, but for himself Vic wasn't so sure it was a good idea.

After Li Ann had put their engagement on indefinite hold, Vic had nursed a broken heart for a while. He was no stranger to heartbreak, but this had been a particularly rough one to work through, since he was still seeing her nearly every day.

But hey, the months had passed, and he _had_ gotten over it. And now he was in a comfortable place with her, where he was honestly happy to be her friend.

Best not to mess with that, probably.

"No," he said, with a tinge of regret. "I don't think that would work for me."

* * *

After the meal, Mac napped on the couch. Vic and Li Ann played Scrabble, and listened to the Tragically Hip album that Mac had given Vic. Vic kept a bit of a wary eye on Mac, in case one of his nightmares kicked in, but Mac slept with just a quiet restlessness, occasionally squirming into a more comfortable position or smacking his lips.

Once she'd beat Vic twice in a row at Scrabble, Li Ann stood up and stretched. "I think it's time for me to go," she said.

Vic looked over towards the couch. "Want to leave Mac here? I can drive him home later."

But Mac must have been at least partly awake—at the sound of his name he stirred, and sat up, blinking. "No, I'm ready to go," he said.

At the door, coats and boots on, Mac and Li Ann took turns giving Vic hugs good-bye. "Thanks for a great dinner," Li Ann said. "See you on January 4th, I guess."

The thought gave Vic pause. It was true, they were all on vacation until the Monday after New Year's.

Remembering the state Mac had shown up in this morning, Vic was a little uneasy at the thought of him off on his own for the next nine long days.

"Hey," Vic said. "Want to get together for Boxing Day brunch tomorrow?"

Mac tilted his head down to peer at Vic over his sunglasses. "You just can't get enough of us, huh?"

"We could meet at that diner on Spadina near Dundas. You know, the one with the red vinyl booths," Vic said. He looked at them looking at him. "Too much?"

"No, sure, that sounds nice," Li Ann said. "Nine o'clock?"

"See you then," Vic said, and watched them go.


	2. Chapter 2

Vic showed up at the diner five minutes early, and got a booth. Li Ann walked through the door precisely on time. The waitress brought them coffees, but they held off ordering food while they waited for Mac.

"Listen," Vic said, since he had Li Ann alone, "I had a bit of an ulterior motive in setting this up."

She tilted her head expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

"I wanted to check up on Mac. Make sure he's not going off the rails."

She nodded slowly. "I can see why you'd think of that. Yesterday morning, showing up drunk..."

"Yeah," Vic said. He sipped his coffee, gauging her expression. "You're not worried?"

She shrugged. "I've known Mac a lot longer than you have. He has these darker periods sometimes. He skirts disaster. But he always pulls through." She sipped her coffee, looked at Vic over the rim. "Honestly, I thought you set this up because _you_ were lonely. Yesterday, your whole Christmas thing—it was a little intense."

Vic opened his mouth to deny it, but then he found that he couldn't, really. "Well, maybe a little," he conceded. "That week at your apartment was a nice change from living alone, in some ways."

Li Ann nodded. "I guess I do miss the company now, a bit. When we started, I was afraid that having you two underfoot all the time would drive me nuts—but actually it wasn't so bad. Especially once I got my bedroom to myself." She smiled at Vic. "Thanks for sharing the futon with Mac, by the way. I hope it wasn't too awkward. I guess _you_ must be glad to be back in your own bed by yourself again."

"God, yes," Vic said, which was clearly the correct response.

The weird thing was, it was a lie.

The first time he'd woken up and realized that Mac was spooning him in his sleep, he'd been pretty freaked out.

But the next three nights, once he'd resigned himself to the inevitability (and it _was_ inevitable, as it turned out, at a certain point in his sleep cycle Mac would unerringly roll towards Vic and cuddle him without waking up), it had actually been ... kind of nice.

Not that he would ever admit that to Li Ann. Or Mac. Or, if he could possibly manage the trick, himself.

"So anyway," Vic said, "What would you say to making a regular thing of these breakfast get-togethers, for the rest of our vacation?"

Li Ann looked bemused, but she said, "Sure, it's not like I had any other plans."

Just then, Mac finally showed up. He was wearing the scarf that Vic had given him for Christmas, and he was holding hands with a slender blond man.

"Hey guys," Mac said, "This is Chris. Would one of you mind switching sides so he can sit with me?"

"Um," Vic said.

Li Ann looked equally perplexed.

Since Mac and Chris were just standing there expectantly, and somebody had to do _something_ , Vic slid out of the booth and back in on the other side next to Li Ann.

"Thanks!" Mac said cheerfully, and slid in next to Chris.

"Hi," Chris said, offering a hand over the table for Vic and Li Ann to shake. "Nice to meet you."

Chris looked about twenty-five. His short-cropped hair was a bleached, not natural, blond. He was wearing a puffy red parka, and had what looked like the day-after smudged remains of black eyeliner around his eyes.

Vic wanted to ask 'Who the hell are you?' but he settled for "So, uh, Chris, how do you know Mac?"

"I picked him up last night in the Village," Chris said with a grin.

"It's an epic romantic tale," Mac said. "Or, did I say epic? I meant sordid." And then he kissed Chris, on the lips. With tongue. It went on for several seconds. Vic gazed up at the diner's pressed tin ceiling in newfound fascination. Li Ann drummed her fingernails awkwardly on the table.

The kiss was only interrupted by the waitress arriving to take their orders.

"I woke up this morning and he was getting dressed," Chris added, once the waitress left. "I asked him where he was going and he said he had brunch plans with friends, and I thought, _okay, he's ditching me_. But then he invited me along. So, hi!"

"Hi!" Li Ann echoed with an uncomfortable smile.

"Wow," Vic said, trying not to squeak.

What the _hell_ was Mac up to?

Now Mac's left hand was covering Chris's right, on the table, and they were intertwining fingers. Mac leaned over and gave Chris another kiss, this one on the ear.

Chris laughed a little, and kissed Mac back on the nose. Then he said, "Careful, your friends look a little uncomfortable. You didn't tell me they were straight."

"They're okay," Mac said, and gave Chris another peck on the lips before he relented.

Vic was not at all sure that he was okay. He'd never seen Mac act so _gay_ before. Vic was having trouble figuring out where he could safely look.

Li Ann, meanwhile, was doing that slightly-frozen thing she did when she was uncomfortable and trying to hide it. So Vic guessed that this was a novel experience for her, too, for all that she'd been the one to lecture Vic last week about not being homophobic.

Okay. Even if Mac was playing this whole thing up deliberately in an effort to make Vic uncomfortable—which would be par for the course—Vic still intended to keep his promise to Li Ann and not freak out. Anyway, Chris was an innocent bystander.

Vic searched his scattered thoughts for a possible polite, neutral topic of conversation. "Did you have a nice Christmas?" he asked Chris.

"It was okay," Chris said. "Got together with some friends to open presents in the afternoon. Christmas night was the best part." He grinned at Mac. Cue more kissing.

"So, you, uh," Vic cleared his throat, "don't have any family in town?"

Chris grimaced. "Not that I'm on speaking terms with. You?"

Vic shrugged, belatedly realizing that this was a _terrible_ topic for conversation. "Same."

"What did you do for Christmas?" Chris asked him.

Vic felt surprisingly happy about the fact that he had an answer. "I had Mac and Li Ann over. We did the tree, presents, dinner—it was nice."

Chris nodded sagely. "Chosen family. Much better than the other kind."

Vic hadn't heard the term before, but the meaning was clear from context. He felt a reflexive urge to clarify that they weren't family (chosen or otherwise), they were co-workers—but actually that had really changed, hadn't it? Gradually over the past year and then suddenly, post-Michael.

Vic put his hand over Li Ann's and squeezed it gently, mirroring Mac and Chris's hands on the other side of the table. "Yeah," Vic said. "You've got that right."

* * *

When they parted for the day outside the diner, Vic watched Mac and Li Ann do an awkward sort of hug, followed by a confusing little dance where Mac tried to kiss Li Ann on the cheek but she turned her head the wrong way and he got her on the nose, and then the same thing happened in reverse, and then they finally kissed on the lips, clearly on purpose, for several seconds. Afterwards they leaned their foreheads together, and only because he was standing very close could Vic hear Mac murmur quietly to Li Ann, "You okay?" and Li Ann responding, "Yeah. You?" to which Mac nodded.

Vic noticed Chris watching them, too, from a little further off, with an expression of bemusement.

Then Mac gave Vic a little wave and a "See you tomorrow!"

"Same time, same place!" Vic reminded him, since he had managed to get everyone to agree to that.

By mutual unspoken agreement, Vic and Li Ann stood silently and watched Mac and Chris walk off hand-in-hand, until they rounded a corner and vanished from sight.

"So," Vic said, turning to Li Ann. "Wow. Um. That just happened."

"Yes," Li Ann said, looking thoughtful.

"What do you think he's up to?" Vic asked.

"Moving on," Li Ann answered without hesitation. "He said he wanted to."

"Okay, but that—" Vic waved vaguely in the direction that Mac and Chris had gone, "happened a little too fast, don't you think?"

"Depends on how you look at it," Li Ann said. "It's been nearly three years since we ran from the Tangs. He hasn't been with anyone since then."

"Except for Claire," Vic pointed out, for accuracy's sake.

"Who he nearly married after they'd dated for one day," Li Ann said. " _That_ was moving too fast. _This_ —" she, too, waved towards where they'd last seen Chris, "This is just going out and meeting somebody."

"Well, Chris probably isn't an international arms dealer," Vic said, optimistically. "I guess I should give him a shot."

* * *

The next day, Mac and his date were the first ones in the booth, before Vic arrived.

The date wasn't Chris.

This guy was a bit shorter, stockier. He had curly black hair and an olive complexion; at first glance Vic thought he might be Italian, or maybe Greek. Unlike Chris with his bleached hair and his eyeliner, there was nothing about this guy that struck Vic as gay, other than the fact that he was currently making out with Mac.

Vic cleared his throat. "Good morning. Hi."

"Hi Vic!" Mac said, cheerfully. "This is Petros."

"Hi," Vic said, weakly, shaking the hand that Petros offered.

The bell over the diner's door dinged, and Vic glanced over and saw with relief that Li Ann was walking in.

"Li Ann, Petros. Petros, Li Ann," Mac continued the introductions.

"Nice to meet you," Li Ann said politely, far more steadily than Vic had managed.

They all settled in the booth, and the waitress brought them coffee and took their orders. It was the same waitress as yesterday, but she didn't seem perturbed by Mac's change of companions.

Once again, Vic found himself not sure where to look and searching desperately for appropriate small talk.

Actually, compared to Chris, Petros seemed a bit stiff, or maybe shy—less at ease making conversation with Vic and Li Ann. He seemed to be struggling to come up with small talk himself.

"So," he said to Vic with the sort of fixed grin you'd see on people at awkward parties, "What do you do?"

"Oh, uh..." Vic hesitated.

"Petros is a musician!" Mac jumped in, with enthusiasm.

"Oh really?" Vic said. "Rock?"

"No, classical," said Petros. "I play the viola."

"That's like the violin, right?" Li Ann said. "Only a little bigger?"

Petros launched enthusiastically into a half-hour monologue on the differences between the violin and the viola. Mac, Vic and Li Ann took turns encouraging him with brief questions, while the others listened and nodded. It didn't occur to Petros to ask any more questions about Vic's life, or Li Ann's.

At the end of breakfast, Petros said he had to run off to a rehearsal. Vic held Mac back with a hand on his arm. "A word?" he said.

Mac looked wary, but he stayed put.

"Are you going to keep doing this?" Vic asked.

"Probably," Mac said. "Why?"

Vic had an awful lot of things he wanted to say, but he stuck with the most operational. "We need to coordinate our cover stories."

"Ah," Mac said. "Right. I've been saying that I'm a private security consultant slash bodyguard. Some guys think that's hot."

"Okay," Vic said, ignoring the bit about hotness. "I can do that too. Explains how we know each other."

"And you're an ex-cop," Mac said.

Vic bit back a sigh. "I always am. But—I don't like to talk about it."

Mac turned to Li Ann with a grin. "And you're an international art thief who we tracked across the world and finally caught, and then instead of turning you in we turned you to the side of light."

Li Ann rolled her eyes. "If we're coming up with stories that _won't_ scare the civilians, I probably shouldn't be a criminal. Also, you said you're a bodyguard, not a detective."

"True," Mac admitted. "Okay. Mixed martial arts instructor?"

"Fine," Li Ann said.

* * *

The next day, Vic experienced a complete lack of shock when Mac walked into the diner at ten past nine with an entirely new guy holding his hand.

This guy was nearly as tall as Mac and a bit broader. He was black, and his hair was done up in neat cornrows.

"Hi," he said, shaking Vic's and Li Ann's hands. "I'm Malik."

Making small talk was somewhat easier this time, since with their cover identities established Li Ann and Vic didn't have to be so careful to deflect the conversation away from themselves. When Li Ann brought up her supposed profession, Malik mentioned that he'd taken karate lessons for five years when he was a kid, and that he'd been thinking about taking it up again. Li Ann spoke enthusiastically about the benefits of practising martial arts in terms of fitness and flexibility, and recommended that he look for a dojo in his neighbourhood.

Near the end of breakfast, when Mac had excused himself to the restroom, Malik leaned in a little across the table and said quietly, "I hope I'm not overstepping here, but what happened to Mac?"

The question had come out of nowhere, and Vic was confused by it. "What do you mean?"

"The PTSD," Malik clarified.

"Ah," Vic said, swallowing. He thought he could guess where the question was coming from, now. He glanced sideways at Li Ann; she was doing her frozen smile thing. "He had a bad night, huh?"

"One of my little sisters was adopted from a war zone," Malik said. "She used to have night terrors like that."

"Did, um, anything happen? Last night, I mean? Is everybody okay?" Vic remembered the worst night that Mac had had at Li Ann's apartment—he'd attacked Vic in his disorientation, and he'd spent a quarter of an hour after he woke up huddled in a ball and crying. And then afterwards he'd refused to talk about it. It still freaked Vic out to think about it.

"He didn't hurt himself, or me, if that's what you mean," Malik said. "Once he'd settled down and got hold of himself, he tried to laugh it off, like it was no big deal. And look, I know it's none of my business, I'm just a one-night-stand. But you two seem pretty close to him, so I figured—I just wanted to check that he's getting help from somewhere, that he's got somebody looking out for him."

"He's fine," Li Ann said. Her voice sounded almost normal, but Vic noticed her white-knuckled grip on her coffee cup.

"We're looking out for him," Vic clarified, which he actually wasn't sure was entirely true, but he needed to reassure Malik and make sure that this conversation ended quickly. "How's your sister doing now?"

"Better, thanks." Malik leaned back, seemed to relax a bit. "A decade in therapy helped."

"Glad to hear it," Vic said.

* * *

Breakfast ended shortly afterwards. Li Ann left quickly, saying something about needing to do some shopping in Chinatown. Mac and Malik left together, but Vic saw them part with a kiss at the end of the next block.

Malik's analysis of Mac's situation was worrying Vic. Not that he hadn't already been worried—but now he had extra words to express the worry with. Four extra words, specifically: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Was that what it was? Malik wasn't necessarily qualified to make that diagnosis; he was just some guy who'd spent one night with Mac, and who had a sister who'd been a child of war. But now that Malik had named it, Vic found himself pretty much convinced.

Okay, but what good was naming it? 

Malik's sister had needed ten years of therapy. Mac wasn't even in therapy; Vic had asked, and Mac had shut the idea right down, saying he wasn't crazy.

So what exactly could Vic do? Mac didn't want to talk about it, he'd made that clear. He also emphatically didn't want Vic to talk to Li Ann about it, and from Li Ann's reaction when Malik had brought it up, Vic got the distinct feeling that Li Ann didn't want to talk about it either.

That left only one possibility that Vic could think of, though it wasn't a route he was happy about taking.

When he got back to work, he was going to have to talk to the Director.


	3. Chapter 3

Vic arrived at work ten minutes early on Monday, January 4th. Mac was already at the briefing table, slouched in the right-most chair.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring a date," Vic couldn't resist saying as he claimed the next chair over.

Mac rolled his eyes. "I know better than to bring along a friend when I report to work at a Shadowy Government Agency, thank you. I left him sleeping in his bed. I even climbed out the window so that I wouldn't have to wake him up to lock the door behind me."

Vic sighed. "You're not even joking, are you?" Mac had astonished Vic and Li Ann by managing to show up for breakfast at the diner with a different guy every single day of their vacation, barring New Year's Day itself. That one omission was only due to the fact that the three of them had gone to Toronto's outdoor New Year's Eve celebration together, followed by drinks at a nearby bar, and then crashed at Li Ann's house at 3 a.m. with Vic and Mac sharing the futon again.

"It's your fault, you know," Mac said.

"Huh?" Vic said.

Mac made an exaggerated smouldering expression. "Ever since those nights we spent together, I don't like sleeping alone anymore." As soon as he'd said it, he looked away. Vic got the uncomfortable feeling that Mac had meant to say something funny, but instead he'd accidentally said something true.

"It was only four nights," Vic said, trying to sound like he was taking humorous offence, to turn it back into a joke.

"Five, really," Mac said. "Plus New Year's. But who's counting?"

Vic gave Mac a sharp look. His eyes were a bit shadowed and bloodshot, though at least he wasn't wearing his sunglasses indoors the way he sometimes did. "Are you hung over?" he asked.

Mac showed him a quick middle finger. "No, and fuck off. I just didn't get enough sleep."

Okay, now Vic wasn't sure why Mac seemed to be mad at him.

Also—how _had_ they ended up sleeping together after New Year's Eve, actually? That is, once they'd ended up at Li Ann's place it had been inevitable, since Li Ann didn't want either one of them in her bed. But why had Vic and Mac gone to Li Ann's place at all, instead of going home?

They'd been drinking. Vic couldn't remember their thought process.

He did remember waking up later on New Year's Day, slightly but not too uncomfortably hung over, his limbs all tangled up with Mac's.

Li Ann had already been awake. She'd been sitting at the dining table and sipping tea, watching them quietly with a raised eyebrow.

"Good morning," she'd said. "Want some toast?"

And they hadn't talked about it.

Back in the present, Vic was spared further uncomfortable conversation with Mac by the arrival of Jackie, followed less than a minute later by Li Ann.

As soon as the four agents were seated, the Director emerged from her office above.

"Welcome back, ma'am!" Vic said with complete sincerity as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

She granted him a little smile. She looked fine—her outfit, a black pants suit, was maybe a bit looser and more comfortable than some of her favourites, but if he didn't already know Vic would never have guessed that she'd been shot just two and a half weeks ago. "Thank you," she said. "And welcome back to all of you, as well. Considering your experiences since last we gathered here, let me just say that I am very proud of all of you, and extremely happy to have you all back in one piece."

"Thanks," Li Ann said, smiling too.

"And now—time for your new case." The Director snapped her fingers, and the TV screen in the wall turned on. The first still image was a strikingly beautiful black woman, dressed in a glittering ballgown and wearing heavy stage makeup. "This is Ebony Stalking."

"That's an unusual name," Vic said.

"It's a stage name," the Director said. "She's a political activist—"

"In _that_ outfit?" Jackie interrupted.

"—and drag performer," the Director finished.

"Wait, that's a _man_?" Vic said.

"She's the driving force behind an upcoming fund-raising gala in support of same-sex marriage," the Director continued, ignoring the back-chat.

"Oh hey, I think I've seen the posters," Mac said. "The Two-Ring Circus! There's going to be drag, burlesque, all kinds of great acts. It's in, like, a week and a half."

The Director acknowledged Mac with a slight nod. "That's right. Meanwhile, Nathan has been watching the message boards, and he's seen some chatter—there have been threats. Well, there are always threats in this sort of situation, but some of these seem credible. So I'm going to be putting a couple of you undercover—"

"I have _always_ wanted to see Vic in a dress," Mac interrupted with a grin.

"Oh, as have I, believe me," the Director said, giving Vic a look that made him squirm. "Sadly, however, I really doubt if he could pull it off with the required enthusiasm."

Vic let out the breath he hadn't quite known he'd been holding.

"So we're putting Mac in drag, then?" Jackie asked, cracking her gum.

The Director gave a soft sigh. "I wish."

"I can do it," Mac said. "I mean, if you need me to."

"Mac, Mac, Mac." The Director started a stroll around the table to make one of her disconcerting passes behind the backs of their chairs. She paused behind Mac and ruffled his hair gently. "I let you out of my sight for two weeks, and the next thing I know you've let yourself become ... _known_."

Mac looked uncomfortable, which was pretty natural considering that the Director was still playing with his hair. "You mean ... the dates?"

The Director nodded. "What kind of behaviour is that for a secret agent, I ask you?" Her fingers wrapped around Mac's curls and gave a little tug.

"Ow!" Mac yelped. "Hey, I followed protocol. I never gave a last name. I never brought them back to my place. I never went with the same guy twice."

Vic experienced a sharp, unexpected shift of perspective. He'd assumed that taking up with a different man every night was evidence of Mac spinning out of control. It hadn't occurred to him that it was Mac being careful with his cover.

The Director let go of Mac's hair. "True," she said. "Nevertheless, by unhappy coincidence, you have already established a specific persona in the very milieu in which I want to insert you. So I'll have to work with that. You can't be the drag queen. You're going to apply to the club for work as a bouncer."

"Okay," Mac said.

"So nobody's doing drag?" Jackie asked, sounding disappointed.

"Well, I didn't say that," the Director said. "Li Ann?"

"Um, sure," Li Ann said. "Only—you don't want me to dress up as a drag _queen_ , do you? I really don't think I could pull that off."

"No, no," the Director said. "Drag king, obviously."

"Wait," Vic said. "Doesn't Li Ann have the same problem as Mac? Mac's been bringing his, um, _dates_ to breakfast every day. They've all met me and Li Ann."

"Meh," the Director said. "She's known less intimately. Anyway, I reviewed the security footage from the restaurant. Li Ann was wearing a man's shirt on five of the eight days. We can work with that."

Li Ann met the others' gazes defensively. "What, I like the necklines."

"If possible, Li Ann," the Director went on, "I want you to try to get cast in the show."

Li Ann looked a bit intimidated. "That could be tricky. If they've already got their line-up..."

The Director brushed off Li Ann's concern with a flick of her wrist. "These community-run events are always a bit chaotic. There are sure to be last-minute cancellations. Use your talents, I have faith in you. Anyway, even if you don't get into the show itself, the important thing is to make connections with the performers."

"To what end?" Li Ann asked.

"Ebony Stalking's daytime identity is unknown to me. She appears at events only in drag, and guards her true identity carefully. I can't _protect_ her outside of the club if I don't know who she is." The Director shrugged. "Try to find out her real name. Discreetly. If you manage, I'll send Jackie to keep an eye on her." 

"If nobody knows who she is—" Vic felt weird saying 'she,' this was a man they were talking about, but everybody else was doing it, "—isn't she safe?"

"That's true as long as _nobody_ knows who she is," the Director agreed. "But I don't want to find out the hard way that somebody else found out first."

"Somebody who?" Li Ann asked. "Do we know who's making the threats?"

"Ah, yes." The Director snapped her fingers. "Next slide!"

The next image was a nondescript-looking white man in maybe his mid-thirties. He had short, light brown hair, visibly thinning, and a small goatee. He was wearing a black leather jacket and seemed to be sitting astride a motorcycle, although the machine was largely cropped out of the picture.

"Meet Jeffrey Jason Jones," the Director said. "A.k.a. 3-Jay. Founder of a fun little motorcycle club called the Dog Pack. They started pinging my radar about two years ago. They haven't taken any real action yet that I know of, but Jones has been photographed meeting with established Neo-Nazis, as well as representatives from the Klan."

Mac raised his hand. "Sorry, which clan? The MacDonalds, the Campbells? You just said that like you thought we'd know what you meant, but I don't."

The Director rolled her eyes. " _The_ Klan. As in, Ku Klux."

Mac still looked confused. "The who what now?"

"The KKK," the Director stressed, looking annoyed. "American white supremacist terrorist organization, white hoods and burning crosses, does this ring a bell?"

"No," Mac said. "It wasn't in the briefing notes."

"There weren't any briefing notes," the Director said.

Mac nodded. "Well then."

"I expect my agents to maintain a _modicum_ of awareness of historical and current events," the Director said. "In order to facilitate their work in the field?"

Mac shrugged. "Okay, well, I never ran into them in Hong Kong. Sorry."

"Wait, are you saying we're going up against the Klan?" Vic asked, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. "By ourselves?"

"No, I said Jones had _met_ with somebody from the Klan," the Director said. "I was simply trying to establish a _context_. The Dog Pack is an independent local organization, with somewhere between ten and fifteen members. They seem to have aligned themselves with a typical grab-bag of poorly thought out reactionary extreme right-wing philosophies. White supremacism, women-in-their-place, homosexuality is evil, the works. So you can imagine how a black drag queen putting on a big fundraiser for same-sex marriage would get their collective goat. It looks like Jones intends to put himself on the map by taking Ebony Stalking down."

"Is Ebony the target?" Li Ann asked. "Or her event?"

"Well, we don't know," the Director said. "And that's why I want to get somebody inside the Dog Pack."

Vic had a sudden, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "You know," he said, "Actually I think I could be a pretty kick-ass drag queen. I have great calves."

The Director shook her head slowly. "Victor, I am truly sorry," she said. "But it's got to be you."

"No it doesn't," Mac said quickly. "I can ride a motorcycle. I could be an angry white man."

"Sweetie." The Director eased in behind Mac's chair again, and patted his cheek. "No. You didn't know what the KKK was. You're half-foreign, and queer. You wouldn't last five minutes."

"Vic thought I was straight for like, a year," Mac said.

"Well, in retrospect I was deliberately ignoring a lot of signs," Vic confessed.

He wasn't quite sure if he was taking a dig at Mac, or protecting him.

"I could do it?" Li Ann said. "Well, if I'm going to be in drag anyway ... I can ride a motorcycle too."

The Director just gave her a Look.

"Jackie?" Mac suggested, sort of weakly.

"Look, I can do it," Vic said. "I don't have to _like_ it."

"It's really better if you don't like it!" Jackie pointed out.

Mac and Li Ann did a sort of sideways glance at each other.

"This isn't a good idea," Mac said.

"There must be another way we can get intel from the Dog Pack," Li Ann said. "Maybe some simple surveillance?"

"It's a motorcycle gang," the Director said. "They move around a lot. Surveillance isn't a practical option."

"Um, you guys," Vic said. "I can _do_ it." He was starting to feel a bit put off by the fuss Li Ann and Mac were making about his assignment, though he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

"No," Mac said, to the Director. "You've got to make a different plan. Vic is bad at undercover."

Oh, _that_ was why.

"No I'm not," Vic said. "I've done undercover before."

"Yeah, and that went well," Mac said. "You went undercover with the mob and nearly switched loyalties on us."

"Hey," Vic bristled. "Things got complicated, but I remembered which side I was on in the end. Anyway, you're one to talk, you were a full-fledged part of a criminal empire for _years_."

"Yeah, because they adopted me as a _child_. I wasn't _undercover_."

"Vic, you're bad at lying," Li Ann said. "That's a _good_ thing."

"Not for a secret agent," Mac muttered. He turned back to the Director. "Actually, Li Ann in drag on a motorcycle _is_ a better plan. She could pull it off."

The Director, who'd been taking in this whole exchange with an expression of long-suffering patience, sighed. "Mac, be serious. She's Asian. They're white supremacists. You know Vic is the only one of you who can do this."

Mac spun his chair around to face her directly. "And you know there's a chance it'll destroy him."

The Director raised an eyebrow. Everyone else was very quiet, and Vic felt acutely uncomfortable. "Do go on," she said to Mac.

"Normally we go up against either quirky evil or practical evil," Mac said. "You know. Psychotic clowns, or arms dealers. This time you're sending us up against some deep, dark, _philosophical_ evil. And, okay, I'd never heard of the Ku Klux Klan, but I've fucking heard of the Nazis. And you want to send Vic in there? He's _bad_ at _lying_. He's pathologically honest and trustworthy. So you know how he goes undercover? He has to convince himself that the cover persona is _real_ , that the loyalty he's showing to the bad guys is _real_. He has to _live_ it."

Vic didn't think he could ever remember hearing someone describe him in such flattering terms while simultaneously condemning him so thoroughly. He wasn't sure he could even find his voice to respond. "So you think I'm going to become a Neo-Nazi?" he said, and he could hear his voice coming out low, and dangerous, but Mac didn't flinch.

It was Li Ann who responded. "No. We think the cognitive dissonance is going to tear you to shreds."

"They have a point," the Director said. "You should take precautions. This won't be deep cover, Vic. Make sure you come up for air every day. Meet Li Ann and/or Mac, reconnect with who you really are. Meet at Li Ann's place, or Mac's; their buildings are secure, and they're each over two hundred units. Even if you're seen going in, nobody would have any reason to connect you to Mac or Li Ann. Make sure you never arrive or leave within five minutes of each other, keep an eye out for a tail whenever you move—standard procedure. I have faith in you."

* * *

By the end of the briefing, Vic felt like a washcloth that had been wrung out. Nevertheless, he lingered while the others exited; he was determined to have a private word with the Director.

Seeing that Vic wasn't leaving, the Director went around to her desk, sat back in the chair, and lit a cigar. "Sit," she indicated the chair in front of the desk. "Once again, Victor, I _am_ sorry about the assignment. If there'd been an alternative, I would have taken it. Is there something you didn't want to say in front of the others?"

"Not about the case," Vic said. He drummed his fingers on his knee, wondering how to approach this. Better just dive straight in. "Does Mac have PTSD?"

"Well," the Director said, "yes. Why do you ask?"

"What happened to him?"

"Many, many things." The Director sucked on her cigar, blew a cloud of smoke over her shoulder. "Again—why do you ask?"

"He's been having nightmares."

"I know. And?"

"And that's _bad_ ," Vic said, feeling oddly defensive. "Can't you do something about it?"

She tapped the cigar into the ashtray on the desk. "Like what?"

"Like ... therapy?"

"You can lead a horse to a therapist, but you can't make him drink," the Director said. "Believe me, I've tried."

"Couldn't you try again?" Vic asked, lamely.

The Director just looked at him, and smoked.

"He's waking up screaming, like, two nights out of three! That's not _okay_ , we have to _do_ something. Seriously, do you actually know what happened to him or are you just being vague and obstructive?"

"I don't necessarily know what happened in any sort of specific sense, no. But this story isn't going to hinge on some particular event, Vic. Mac's life up to this point has had a certain character, and he inevitably lives with the consequences."

"What are you saying? That it's okay, he's just got to carry on like this? I don't understand."

The Director sighed. "Victor. I'm saying you _can't_ understand. I know that you think that your suburban white-trash childhood of quiet desperation left you with certain scars. Well, and yes it did. I appreciate that. I doubt you could've survived your first years at the Agency without a certain amount of preexisting scar tissue. But consider that Mac and Li Ann spent their adolescence at the heart of a Triad gang, watched over by a crime lord who would eventually put out a 3-million dollar bounty on their heads and a possessive, borderline-psychopathic older 'brother' who would later try to kill them on several occasions and nearly succeed."

Well, when she put it like that ... "So are you saying that Mac has PTSD from his time with the Tangs? I mean, when Li Ann and Mac actually talk about the Tangs, it doesn't really sound that bad."

"Exactly," the Director said. "That was the _good_ part of their lives. Think about it."

"What, um, happened to them before the Tangs?" Vic asked.

He remembered asking Mac the same question, during the week at Li Ann's house. Mac had refused to answer.

"I don't know," the Director said. "Perhaps the Tang godfather knew, or Michael, but they're dead. You would have to ask Mac or Li Ann."

"They don't want to talk about it," Vic said.

The Director nodded. "Well then."

"So that's it?" Vic asked, frustrated. "You're just going to let Mac keep going like this, having nightmares all the time?"

"Well, as long as he gets his work done, my needs are met," the Director pointed out. "It would be asking a bit much to require my shadowy, top-secret spies and ninjas to be in perfect mental health, wouldn't it?"

"But he's _suffering_ ," Vic said. He couldn't quite believe how this conversation was going. Didn't the Director see the problem here?

"I did order him to take antidepressants," the Director pointed out mildly. "They cut the frequency of his night terrors down by about a third."

"And that's it? That's as good as it gets?"

"Maybe," the Director said. "I can see that this appalls you, Victor, and I think that's sweet, but try to understand: Mac's been having night terrors for as long as he can remember. He thinks they're normal. He doesn't think that he needs help. Until he decides for himself that he _wants_ help, there's very little that I can do for him."

"Okay," Vic said, deflating. "Well. Thanks for the chat."


	4. Chapter 4

Li Ann stood against the wall, sipping at her beer, watching the throbbing crowd and wondering how she was going to pull this off. The music was so loud she could feel her collarbone vibrating, and the strobe lights were giving her a headache.

This was the club where the same-sex marriage fundraiser was going to be held. Ebony Stalking headlined a weekly drag show here, so the Director had instructed Li Ann to come here and mingle.

How on earth was Li Ann going to get inside that scene, working by herself? She wasn't outgoing like Mac was. She had very little experience of even _going_ to clubs.

Also unfortunately, the drag show ran on Friday nights, and today was only Monday. It didn't look like Ebony was here tonight, and Li Ann had no idea how she could make any progress.

She envied Mac the simplicity of his own insertion. He'd dropped off his CV at the bar this afternoon and been hired on the spot. He was starting tomorrow.

Li Ann felt like she stuck out like a sore thumb—not just because she was a woman in men's clothes, but because she was quiet, and solitary. But it was concerning that there was nobody else in drag as far as she could see. The crowd was about 80% men dancing with other men, mostly dressed in club-wear. There were some people dancing in mixed-sex pairs, too, and a few women dancing with women. Some of the women were pretty butch, but nobody was in full-on drag the way Li Ann was.

Li Ann had worn a black Spanish-style suit with a bolero tie. She'd slicked her hair back and pencilled on a thin moustache. She didn't mind the costume—in fact, in some ways she felt more at ease than usual, like she could take up more space when she walked and scowl more without offending people—but it didn't seem to be getting her anywhere.

One woman with a shaved head and Celtic tattoos had approached Li Ann earlier in the night and tried to chat, but Li Ann had brushed her off, since her mission was to make contact with a drag queen. But there didn't seem to be any drag queens here tonight. Nobody else had approached Li Ann, and now she was regretting not talking to the woman—at least it would've been a connection with _somebody_.

Just then, Li Ann spotted directed movement in the crowd. A woman in a flowing red dress and high-heeled boots, with a glorious cloud of fluffy black 80's-style curls around her head, was coming her way. The woman drew nearer, smiling a bright red lipstick smile at Li Ann.

Then Li Ann blinked again and resolved the masculine planes of the woman's jaw, her muscular arms.

A drag queen, at last. Delivering herself straight to Li Ann's side. Li Ann wondered if the Director was lurking in the background somehow, pulling strings.

The— _woman_ , Li Ann decided she might as well think of her, since that's how she was presenting herself—drew level with Li Ann and cocked her head up at her. She was about average height for a woman, which meant she was short for a man; the top of her head was about level with Li Ann's nose. She said something.

"What was that?!" Li Ann yelled. The thudding bass line was making her ears ring.

"I recognize you!" the drag queen repeated, audibly this time.

Li Ann's heart skipped a beat, but she kept her expression cool. Maybe this was one of Mac's boyfriends from last week? With the wig and the makeup, Li Ann couldn't be sure. If it was, that was fine—as the Director had pointed out, nothing from Li Ann's interactions with those guys contradicted her appearance here. "From the diner?" she shouted back.

The drag queen shook her head. "No! The Tang girl!"

Okay. _Now_ Li Ann could panic.

She made a subtle move and suddenly she had the drag queen pinned against the wall with one wrist bent back so that it would feel like it was about to break. To anyone watching, unless they were paying _extremely_ close attention, it would have looked like they'd just drawn closer together to talk.

"What did you say?" Li Ann hissed into the drag queen's ear, letting her tone suggest that she could easily kill a man with her bare hands and then make the body disappear without a trace.

"The tango!" the drag queen squeaked. "Tango Night at the Castillo! Last summer! I saw you there! I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd mind being recognized, we're all queer here!"

Oops, Li Ann had sure misheard that one. She dropped the submission hold. "It's all right," she said. "I'm a little shy."

"I _noticed_ ," the drag queen said, shooting Li Ann a cautious look and rubbing her wrist. "You didn't seem shy at Tango Night, though. You were _glorious_. I was so impressed. You wouldn't recognize me, I was there as a man. I'd never have the chutzpah to show up to a straight event in drag."

Li Ann gave a little shrug. "I like to tango." She did, in fact, though Tango Night had been just another case.

"You've been doing a bit of a wallflower act tonight," the drag queen observed. "First time here?"

"Yes," Li Ann admitted. "I feel a little overdressed."

"Never say _that_ , my darling!" the drag queen exclaimed, going high camp for a moment. "There's no such thing!"

Li Ann smiled. She found herself liking this drag queen, now that she'd gotten over the initial shock of thinking she'd been recognized as a criminal. "Still," Li Ann said, waving at the crowd, "I don't really fit in."

"Friday is drag night, you should definitely come back then," the drag queen said. "But you should never worry about fitting in here—we're a crowd of misfits from the first to the last!"

Li Ann took a pull from her beer, and realized it was empty. She put it down on a nearby high table, and sighed. "I don't really know what I'm doing here," she confessed.

"Well, that's all right," the drag queen said. "Don't let it stop you from having a good time." She thought for a moment, then cocked her head. "Would you like to dance?"

Li Ann looked out at the pulsing lights, the gyrating dancers. She really couldn't picture herself out there. "Not to this," she said.

"What about a tango?" the drag queen asked, looking impish.

Li Ann puffed out a little laugh. "If they play one," she said.

The drag queen held up a finger. "Wait here," she said.

Bemused, Li Ann watched her make her way around the perimeter of the dance floor to the DJ booth. There was a brief conversation; the DJ nodded. The drag queen headed back for Li Ann, grinning.

"Next song," she said.

Li Ann remained skeptical up until she heard the opening notes—this didn't really seem like a tango place. But when the music started it was pure tango—not an electronic club mix, but the real thing.

She held out her hands to the drag queen, putting herself in the man's position. The drag queen followed Li Ann's cue, taking her outstretched right hand and tucking her left arm over Li Ann's, elbow out.

They moved cautiously at first, feeling each other out. The dance floor had been crowded, but the tango was quickly thinning it out, and in particular a space was opening around Li Ann and the drag queen.

Li Ann could tell that the drag queen was experienced as a dancer, but—like Li Ann herself—unused to the role she was currently taking. There was a moment when they came out of a turn and suddenly the drag queen was leading and Li Ann was following, instead of vice versa. They made quick rueful eye contact and switched back.

As the dance went on, Li Ann started to feel more comfortable, and got the urge to show off a bit.

"Dip?" she suggested as they turned their heads past each other.

"Do it," the drag queen said.

Following the music's cue, Li Ann turned, and leaned in as the drag queen leaned back. Li Ann shifted her supporting leg to balance them both as the drag queen arched back, back, until the tips of her hair—her wig—were brushing the floor.

The music ended. Li Ann and the drag queen held their pose, breathing hard, for another silent beat, then stood up and bowed.

The room broke into delighted hoots and applause.

Afterwards, Li Ann bought the drag queen a drink at the bar.

"I'm Jasmine," the drag queen said belatedly, holding out her hand for Li Ann to shake. "Just out of curiosity, would you happen to be free the Saturday after next?"

That was the night of the fundraising event that Li Ann was supposed to get herself involved in. "Maybe," she said. "Why?"

"I promised a friend that I'd do an act in her show," Jasmine said. "But I've been feeling stale. If you'd be willing to dance a tango with me, I think we'd knock everybody's socks off."

Li Ann restrained herself from shouting with glee. "Do you mean the Two-Ring Circus?" she asked, just to be sure. "You're friends with Ebony Stalking?"

"Bosom buddies," Jasmine said. "Known her for years. Well? Interested?"

"Sure," Li Ann said.

"That's fantastic! When are you free to rehearse?"

"I'm free any time this week," Li Ann said. "Just say the word."

"Tomorrow afternoon, 3 p.m., here? It'll be empty, there'll be lots of room to dance."

"I'll be there," Li Ann promised.

* * *

When she got home, she heard voices coming from inside her apartment before she turned her key.

She hadn't worn a gun to the bar, so she felt a little exposed. On the other hand, the voices in her apartment were making no attempt to be stealthy, so she thought she had a pretty good guess who it was.

Nevertheless, she turned her key in the lock slowly and quietly, eased the door open just a crack without letting the latch make an audible click, and then kicked it open all at once, ready to duck back into the cover of the hallway if necessary.

Vic and Mac looked up from the card game they were playing on her dining table.

"Hey!" Mac greeted her with a cheerful grin. "We saved you three slices of pizza."

She sighed. "It's half past midnight. Why are you two in my apartment?"

Vic scratched the back of his neck. "Well, the Director said I should check in every day..."

"It was the _first day_. Did you even make contact?" She came in, closed and locked the door.

"Nice moustache," Mac said. "It suits you."

"I bought a motorcycle," Vic said.

"Well, technically the Canadian government bought a motorcycle," Mac pointed out. "It wasn't your money. And it's not like you're going to be allowed keep it."

"Not like I'd want to," Vic said.

"So you figure that now that you have a motorcycle, you'll be able to find the Dog Pack guys, make nice with them?" Li Ann asked. She considered whether she felt the need to wash off her moustache before she ate three slices of pizza, and decided that she didn't.

"Oh, I'm already in," Vic said, sounding less than pleased. "I bought the motorcycle _from_ 3-Jay. He has a shop, sells refurbished bikes. I let my sleeve ride up a bit when I was trying out the seat, gave him a glimpse of my tats ... next thing you know, he was inviting me out for drinks with the guys.

"You don't have tattoos," Li Ann said. She took a bite of the cold pizza.

"I do now," Vic said with a sigh. "Did you know that Murphy was a qualified tattoo artist?"

"Nothing about that man surprises me," Mac said.

"Supposedly it's this special ink the Agency uses, it should break down in a month or so. I'll be ready for short-sleeves weather when it comes." Vic gave his shirt cuffs a self-conscious little tug downwards.

"What kind of tattoos?" Li Ann asked, curiously.

Vic grimaced. "I'd rather not share with the group. Let's just say I drew the line at swastikas."

Mac gave Vic's shoulder a quick squeeze. "It's just the case, man. You're working. You're doing what you have to do to protect people."

"How'd your day go?" Vic asked Li Ann.

"Surprisingly well," Li Ann said. "I'm in. I've got a spot in the show."

Mac raised his eyebrows. "You met Ebony Stalking? Already?"

"No, but I made friends with another drag queen. Goes by Jasmine. She's invited me to perform with her in the show. I'm supposed to go back to the bar tomorrow afternoon to practice our piece."

"Oh hey," Mac said, "I'm starting work tomorrow afternoon at two. They said they want some daytime security, since there have been threats."

"I'm getting there at three," Li Ann said. "We'll probably see each other. How should we play it?"

"It's no good pretending not to know each other," Mac said. "We could run into one of the guys I brought to breakfast at any time. We've got to keep those personas."

"Mixed martial arts instructor by day, novice drag king by night," Li Ann mused. "As cover identities go, it's not the worst."

"Yeah, mine is the worst," Vic muttered, and took a drink of the Tsingtao sitting in front of him. Mac must've brought the beer; Li Ann knew she hadn't had any in her apartment.

"How long have we known each other?" Mac asked.

Li Ann had to pause to do the math. "Thirteen years," she said, hardly believing it.

"Wow," Mac said. "But, uh, I meant in terms of our cover story."

"Oh." Li Ann shrugged. "A few years? Let's try to avoid talking about it very much." She stifled a yawn.

"We should go," Vic said. "It's late."

"We have to leave separately," Mac reminded him. "You can go first, I want to finish my beer." He picked up the bottle and sloshed it; it sounded like it had just a couple of mouthfuls left in it.

Li Ann got up to give Vic a tight hug good-bye at the door. "Be careful," she whispered as she held him.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll be fine."

And then he was gone.

Mac was still at her table, sipping at his beer.

Li Ann stifled another yawn and looked at her watch. "You have to give him at least five minutes' head start." She returned to the table, taking the seat that Vic had vacated, next to Mac.

"You know, it's a bit of a mind-fuck, seeing you like this," Mac said. He gave her a wry look over the top of his Tsingtao bottle.

"You mean this?" Li Ann pretend-twirled her painted-on moustache.

"Ha, yes. Dressed as a man. You know you move differently?"

Li Ann had felt that herself, but she was curious to hear how it looked to Mac. "How so?" she asked. "It's not like I'm normally very girly."

"No, you definitely aren't," Mac agreed. "Um, what's different? It's hard to describe ... no, I've got it. You've developed a bit of a swagger."

Li Ann found that she wasn't displeased at that description. "I sort of like doing drag," she admitted. "You know, this isn't the first time the Director's put me in men's clothes for a case."

"Oh yeah?" Mac said. "Well, I'm glad I got to see it this time. It's hot."

Li Ann snorted a little laugh. "Hotter than usual?" she asked.

"Differently hot."

Li Ann gave him a curious look. "You know, I always assumed you were more attracted to women than to men."

"Ah." Mac shrugged, sipped his beer. "I think it might be the other way around."

"Is that why..." Li Ann hesitated, not sure how to put it delicately. She gave a vague wave of her hand. "All the men? Last week?"

Mac gave a little laugh. "Um, yeah. Well. There were a lot of different things going on there." He glanced over at Li Ann's wall clock. "I guess I've missed my chance to pick up tonight. One in the morning on a Monday..."

"Tuesday morning, now," Li Ann corrected him. "Well, I think the Director wanted you to quit, anyway."

"Slow down, at least." He sounded regretful. "Guess I'm sleeping alone tonight."

"What did you mean by 'a lot of different things'?" she asked. She swiped his bottle and finished it; there was only one swallow left, anyway.

"Well, for one thing, it's easier to have one-night-stands with men. You just negotiate it up front. I mean, you can do that with women too, but if you try that in a straight bar they're a lot more likely to find you offensive and creepy."

"Okay, I can see that," Li Ann conceded. "So that's one thing..."

"Well, and I guess ... I mean, bringing them all to _breakfast_ , that part—" Mac gave a little shrug. "I was coming out."

Li Ann gave him a puzzled look. "To me and Vic? You were already out."

"In theory, sure. But I guess I needed to emphasize it. _Really_ come out. Make sure there was no way Vic could be thinking of me as straight anymore." He looked at her. "You, too."

Li Ann wasn't quite following his logic. "I've known you were bi since we were teenagers," she pointed out.

"Sure, but Michael and I kissed in front of you, what, once? Ever? That one time when Michael was drunk."

Li Ann thought back, remembering that night. She'd already had her suspicions about Mac and Michael, but seeing them kiss had been a bit of a shock. "We were all drunk," she mentioned.

"Yeah. But that was unusual for Michael. He usually didn't let himself become intoxicated. It was a control thing." Mac grimaced at the memory. "He was _pissed off_ at me the next day."

Li Ann felt a sudden sharp concern, about six years too late. "Did he hurt you?" she asked.

Mac kind of froze for a moment. Li Ann could hear her own heart thumping. She really wasn't sure if she should have gone there.

"Yeah," Mac finally said, without elaboration.

Li Ann sat with that thought for a moment. Mac was suddenly fascinated by his empty Tsingtao bottle; he started picking at the label.

Finally Li Ann took a breath, and decided not to run from this one. In a weird way, the fact that she was in drag seemed to be making her feel larger, more protective of Mac. "Often?"

The label was coming off in shreds. Mac didn't say anything for a little while. Then, "Sometimes."

"I wish you'd told me sooner," Li Ann said quietly.

Mac looked up at her then. "I'm sorry," he said, and she couldn't quite understand why but he looked very ashamed. "I know I should have. But I really couldn't. I ... I didn't think he could ever hurt _you_. But I should have told you."

"Oh," Li Ann realized what he thought he was apologizing for. "That's not what I meant. You didn't have to protect me from him. You're right, he never _could_ hurt me. And the first time he tried ... I killed him."

Mac let out a sharp little laugh. "You sure did. You know, of the two of us, you are definitely the more badass." He kind of shook himself, and glanced at the clock again. "Time to go."

"Wait," Li Ann said. "It's really late. You can stay on the futon if you want."

"Nah," Mac said, standing up. "But thanks."

Somehow after the talk they'd just had about Michael, Li Ann was reluctant to leave Mac to spend the night alone. "It's really no problem," she said.

He gave her a look. "I'm okay," he said. "Really." His voice was light. He sounded convincing. But something in Li Ann's gut told her not to let him go.

Was she being overcautious? The new information about Mac's relationship with Michael had disturbed her, but for Mac it was an old story—three years gone, at least.

Well, except for the events of the past month, when Michael had come to town and constructed an entire fake conversion to the side of good in order to get Mac to trust him again—just so that Michael could achieve the maximum possible amount of hurt when he betrayed Mac and tried to kill him.

"I'm really not sure that you are," Li Ann said, reaching over to touch his hand, just with her fingertips.

"Okay, maybe not," he admitted, curling his fingertips around hers. "But I can't sleep here. I have nightmares sometimes. I might wake you up."

"Well, I know," she said. "You were here for a week."

"Yeah, but I had Vic running interference."

Their fingertips were twined pretty tightly now. Mac was still standing, not quite facing Li Ann, and Li Ann was still in the chair. She decided to stand up, but she didn't close the space between them. "Do you dream about Michael?"

She could see his shoulders tense. "Sometimes," he said, looking at a spot on the wall. "Among other things."

It hadn't even occurred to her that Michael might not be the only problem. "Other things?"

He shook his head, and finally looked directly at her. "No, Li Ann. There are things we _don't_ talk about. Things from before the Tangs."

Suddenly she seemed to have a very big lump in her throat. She swallowed around it and said quietly, "I told you where I came from."

He nodded, and said gently, "You did. Once, briefly. Do you want to talk about it?"

She could only shake her head.

He pulled her into a tight hug. She let herself stand there for a while, her face pressed into his shoulder, just feeling his arms around her. "It's okay," he said. "You don't have to." Finally he let go. "I'm gonna go now."

"Wait," she said. "Don't go home. Go to Vic's place."

"Huh?" he said. "What? Are you serious? It's the middle of the night. He is _not_ gonna want me there. And anyway we're not even supposed to go to his place while he's undercover; it's not secure."

"He's only been undercover for an afternoon," Li Ann pointed out. "Nobody's going to be watching his place at one thirty in the morning. And I'll call him and let him know that you're coming."

Mac ran his fingers through his hair, looking slightly bewildered. "What the hell would you _tell_ him?"

Li Ann raised her chin. "That we've been talking about Michael. Promise you'll go."

"Okay, okay," Mac said, still looking a bit off-balance. "I'll go to Vic's place."

They kissed goodbye at the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Vic had just turned off the lights and climbed into bed when the phone rang. He groaned and rolled over to answer it. "Hello?"

"Vic." It was Li Ann. "I hope I didn't wake you?"

"No, don't worry about it." She didn't sound frantic, so Vic didn't yet reach for his gun, but he did sit up. "What's going on?"

"Mac's coming over to your place."

"What? _Now_?"

"He just left here, so he should get there in about fifteen minutes."

"But..." Vic's eyes flicked over to his bedside clock. It was 1:25 am. "Why?"

"I told him to."

"Um ... _why_?" Vic thought back to his interactions with Mac and Li Ann that evening. Had he somehow given them the impression that he was about to crack from the demands of this undercover assignment? They'd certainly sounded like they thought he would, back at the morning briefing when the Director had explained the assignment, but, Jesus Christ, he'd only been undercover for half a day so far.

"After you left we were talking about Michael."

"Oh." Vic's thoughts rearranged themselves. It wasn't about Vic, then. "And?"

"Some things came up."

"Things like what?"

"Michael was physically abusive," Li Ann said.

Oh, fuck. "To both of you?" Vic asked, carefully.

"No, only to Mac. I didn't realize before tonight."

"Okay." Vic flicked his bedside lamp on; he was not going to be sleeping any time soon. "Shit. What did Mac say?"

"Just that Michael hurt him sometimes."

Mac had never said anything directly to Vic about this, but actually a couple of times he had sort of dropped hints, so unfortunately Vic couldn't claim to be entirely surprised. Plus, it was Michael. "And why exactly did you tell Mac to come here?" Vic asked, because everything was not quite fitting into place yet—he couldn't see what role he was being asked to play.

"I didn't think he should go home alone right after talking about that," Li Ann said. "It just didn't seem like a good idea. And he didn't want to stay at my place, because of the nightmares."

"Ah," Vic said. He knew that Mac had reasons for not wanting Li Ann to know too much about his nightmares—and Vic wasn't exactly clear on those reasons, but he knew there were worrying implications about Li Ann's past, as well as Mac's. "Did you two, um, talk about that?"

"Sort of," Li Ann said. "So you'll let him stay at your place, right?"

Vic didn't push her on the avoidance and the subject change. "Sure," he said with a bit of a sigh. "Three Musketeers."

"Thanks," Li Ann said, sounding very grateful. "Good night, Vic."

* * *

Vic decided he'd better get out of bed; he didn't want to be asleep when Mac arrived. He went out into the living room, turned on the lights, considered making coffee, decided against it because he did want to sleep at _some_ point tonight, opened a book, put it down, and stared at the door.

Fuck Michael.

Seriously, fuck Michael. He deserved to die in _ten_ fiery car crashes.

And what the hell was Vic going to say when Mac walked through that door?

Vic remembered the Director, in the morning, suggesting that Mac's PTSD wasn't necessarily the result of just one traumatic event.

So, okay, maybe years of dealing with Michael's abuse could explain a few nightmares.

Fuck. When Michael had come back into town, they'd all pushed Mac to give him another chance, to let him back in.

Vic remembered standing in the briefing room one day in December, watching Mac beat the shit out of Michael while Michael just stood there and took it. That had been a fucked-up scene. How had Vic not clued in to the undercurrents there? How had _none_ of them? Li Ann had been there, and the Director too. They all knew Mac didn't _act_ like that.

Would Mac want to talk about it? Tonight? The thought gave Vic pause. Vic was not qualified to have that conversation. In fact he had a very specific understanding of the exact ways in which he was unqualified—when he'd been on the force, he'd had training, and he knew at exactly what point he was supposed to hand things over to a counsellor or a crisis specialist.

But that was in a professional context, and Mac was a friend.

A friend who Vic could maybe convince to go into therapy? If the subject came up?

Vic looked at the clock. It was nearly two in the morning.

Mac should've been here fifteen minutes ago.

Vic groaned.

He got up, went over to the phone, and tried calling Mac's cell phone. No answer. Vic wasn't sure if Mac had even had it with him. Mac had a tendency to forget to charge the thing.

Okay. Think it through. He'd left Li Ann's place—where could he have gone?

It was two a.m. on a weeknight. The bars in the Village would be closed by now. Not much in the city would be open. If Mac had decided to go to an all-night coffee shop or something, there was no way Vic could track him. He'd just have to come in on his own.

Vic briefly thought about calling Li Ann back, but decided he didn't want to worry her.

He decided to call Mac's home phone, just in case.

Mac picked up on the fourth ring.

"Jesus, Mac," Vic said; he could hear his worry and frustration making his voice snappish, and he tried to dial it back. "Li Ann told me you were coming to my place; I was waiting up for you."

"Oh, sorry," Mac said, kind of vaguely. "I decided to go home instead."

"Well, you could have called me," Vic pointed out. "I was getting worried."

"Don't be," Mac said. "I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself."

"Well, sure," Vic said. "But you still could've called."

"Next time," Mac said. "Good night. Sweet dreams of motorbikes and jellybeans."

"Wait, Mac—" Vic said quickly, "Are you drunk?"

"No," Mac said, and hung up.

Mac had definitely been drunk.

Vic was not going to get much sleep tonight.

* * *

Vic didn't have a key to Mac's apartment, which wasn't really fair, Vic reflected. Li Ann had a key to Mac's place now, and Mac could pick all the locks whenever he wanted. Why was Vic the only one still left knocking?

Or buzzing from the foyer, in this case. As the Director had pointed out earlier, it was a secure building.

He leaned on the buzzer again, for the fifth time that minute. "I can keep doing this all night," he muttered to nobody. "You're gonna have to answer..."

Finally the speaker crackled. "Go away, Vic," Mac said.

Vic leaned into the microphone grill. "Not happening."

"I'll call security," Mac said.

"I'll tell them I'm afraid you're gonna kill yourself. They'll call the police."

"Fuck you, Vic," Mac said. And then the inner door buzzed.

Vic opened it quickly before Mac could change his mind. Vic realized he'd gone nuclear a little quickly with his threat, but it was 2:20 am, Vic was exhausted and cranky—and he was really, honestly, more than a little worried about Mac right now.

The door to Mac's apartment itself was unlocked, which at least meant that Mac was resigned to Vic gaining entry. Vic let himself in, and slid the deadbolt shut.

Mac was slouched on the sofa, still wearing his suit from the day. There were a half-full vodka bottle and an empty shot glass on the coffee table in front of him.

Mac focused on Vic, apparently with some effort. "Oh my God," he said, "You brought a sleeping bag. And a pillow. You are a dork."

Vic put the aforementioned items down on the floor beside him, along with his duffle bag. He'd come prepared. "I'll sleep on your couch," Vic said. He went over and took the vodka bottle away from Mac. "I don't think you need any more of this. How much have you had?"

Mac just gave him the middle finger.

Vic considered the bottle, and decided to take it out of the equation. He went and put it in one of the high cupboards in Mac's kitchen.

Returning to the living room, he sat down next to Mac, who hadn't moved.

"Li Ann said you guys talked about Michael," Vic said. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Nope," Mac said, very distinctly.

"Okay." Vic waved a hand in front of Mac's face. No reaction. Vic sighed. "I really think you'd better go to bed. You're starting a new job tomorrow."

Mac gave him a bleary, sideways look. "No I'm not," he said. "I'm just pretending to."

"You handed in a CV, you got hired. You're really starting a new job," Vic said. "Which you're secretly doing as part of your _real_ job. So that's like, _double_ jobs. Except that you're pretending to be there to provide security, but you're _actually_ there to ... provide security, but better. Does that even really count as being undercover?"

Mac blinked. "What are you even talking about?"

"I don't know, man," Vic confessed. "I may not be drunk, but I am pretty tired. Let's get you to bed."

* * *

Vic fell asleep quickly but he slept restlessly; he was in an unfamiliar space, on an uncomfortable couch, and he was half-anticipating being woken up by Mac having another nightmare.

So he didn't feel particularly disoriented when, instead, he was woken up by the sound of Mac being sick in the bathroom.

Vic didn't get up at first. Mac could absolutely deal with his own damn consequences from his poor life choices.

A minute later, he heard Mac being sick again.

When he still hadn't heard Mac leave the bathroom five minutes later, Vic sighed, and got up.

Mac was sitting on the bathroom floor, knees up, back resting against the cabinet under the sink. He was still wearing his suit; Vic hadn't tried to get him to change before tossing him in his bed. Mac had undone the top three buttons of the shirt. He looked pale.

"Shit," Vic sighed.

"Oh, hi," Mac said, kind of rolling his head against the cupboard door so he could look up at Vic. "You're still here."

"Yeah." Vic considered the situation for a moment, and then went to Mac's kitchen, got a glass, filled it with water, and came back. Mac hadn't moved. Vic sat down beside him and tried to hand him the glass. "Here, you'd better drink this."

Mac didn't lift a hand to take the glass, he just stared at it with a kind of vague distaste.

"Okay, _shit_ ," Vic said. "You've got to drink this. Here. Sip." He touched the glass to Mac's lips and tilted it carefully. When the water touched Mac's lips, he swallowed. A little dribbled down the sides of his mouth, but Vic was satisfied that he'd taken some in. "Okay," Vic said. "We're gonna keep doing that. And you're gonna talk to me."

"Go away," Mac said.

"Nope," Vic said. "Because now I'm starting to worry that you have alcohol poisoning, and if you start to lose consciousness I am going to be rushing you to the fucking hospital, and won't that be fun?"

Mac closed his eyes and made a little moaning noise.

"Nope. Open your eyes." Vic patted Mac's cheek—not quite a slap—until Mac opened his eyes and glared at him. His skin was clammy. "Hi. Yup. That's better. Okay, now tell me: what the hell is this about?"

"What?" Mac said.

"The vodka. Why?"

"Gonna be my first night alone since Michael died," Mac said. He'd closed his eyes again, but Vic figured he could let him get away with that as long as he was talking. "Figured I should celebrate."

"Okay, Michael. Yes. That is clearly a reason to get fucked up. But you didn't have to be alone. Li Ann told you to go to my place."

"Yeah," Mac said. "But that was a stupid plan. You didn't want me there."

"Who says?" Vic asked. "You just didn't show up."

"You've never liked me," Mac said, and Vic was about to jump in and disagree, but Mac's sentence wasn't finished yet, "the way I like you."

Ah, oops. In vodka veritas.

How to play this one? Vic's main concern was still just to keep Mac talking, make sure he wasn't passing out. But this was an actual conversation that they maybe needed to have. Li Ann had told Vic, back while Mac had a concussion, that Mac had a crush on Vic. Specifically, she'd told Vic that right after Vic had found out that Mac had been Michael's lover; right after Vic had freaked out and yelled at Mac. Li Ann had thought that Vic needed to know about Mac's crush so that he wouldn't lose it when he found out later.

But this was no time for an important conversation. Mac might not even remember it tomorrow.

"I like you," Vic said finally, and held up the water glass to give Mac another sip. "I've saved your life about a hundred times, haven't I?"

"That's your job," Mac said.

"Ha, sure. But I do it with style." He gave Mac another sip of water. "I pulled you out of the soy mill."

"Thanks for that," Mac murmured.

"Yeah. Well. I was thinking about it later. Thinking about how you told me about the bomb, told me to run. Do you remember that?"

"Vaguely," Mac said.

"Well, I remember. You told me to leave you. You would have died. You were willing to die. You would be _dead_ now."

"No point in Michael killing both of us," Mac said.

"Listen to me," Vic said. "When I ran in there, I knew I was risking my life. I was willing to, because I thought there was a decent chance I could save both of us. But when you told me to run, you _knew_ there was no way you were getting out of there on your own. You were ready to _give_ your life to save me."

Mac opened his eyes, squinted at Vic in apparent confusion. "So?"

"So?" Vic wasn't sure what the _so_ was. "So I _care_ about you. And I am very freaked out that you were willing to sacrifice your life to save mine. And I am very glad that you're still alive." Vic scooched in closer to Mac, so that he was pressed up against Mac's side, and he put an arm around the other man. Mac, despite his obvious confusion, settled immediately into the embrace, letting his head rest against Vic's shoulder. "And I am very worried about you right now," Vic added. He could feel his own heart beating very fast. He had had no idea he was about to say all those things; but they were true.

He could also feel Mac trembling.

"Because of the vodka?" Mac said. "I guess I had too many shots. Too fast. I wanted to black out."

Vic bit back a profanity, and just said mildly, carefully, "That's not very safe. Is that something you've done before?"

"Not very often," Mac said. "The Director gets mad at me."

"Okay," Vic said. _Breathe._ "How about you just make me a little promise. That you won't do that again. If you feel like you need to—call me instead. Or Li Ann."

"The Director already made me promise that," Mac said.

"Well, now you can promise me," Vic said. "And you like me more than you like the Director, so maybe you'll keep it this time."

"Okay," Mac said.

Vic hugged him a little tighter, momentarily, and then gave him another sip of water. While he did so, he thought about whether he dared to dig deeper right now.

Among other things, Mac was drunk, and he might not be happy with Vic tomorrow if he thought Vic had taken advantage of his state to question him and learn things that Mac would rather not share.

But on the other hand—it was for Mac's own good. And he really couldn't go on like this.

"So why did you want to black out?" Vic asked.

Since his arm was around Mac, Vic felt the tremor that ran through him. "Because I was thinking about Michael," Mac said.

"You told Li Ann that Michael hurt you sometimes," Vic said.

Mac's shivering got noticeably more intense. Shit, shit. Was Vic an idiot to even be trying to talk with Mac about this? But it was too late to back away now. He just hugged Mac tighter.

"Yeah," Mac said.

"When did that start?" Vic asked, keeping his tone very mild.

"Pretty much from the beginning, I guess," Mac said, so quietly Vic could barely hear him, especially because his teeth were chattering at the same time. "It was worse before I got bigger than him."

Before he got bigger than Michael? ... Fuck. "You mean you were a child," Vic said.

"I was fourteen. But I looked sixteen. I told him I was sixteen. When he found out I'd just turned fourteen, he said he'd find me a place to live. He talked Father into taking me in. Of course Father didn't know we were fucking."

_Fuck_ Michael fucking Tang. When Li Ann and Mac had let on that Mac and Michael had been lovers, Vic had assumed they were talking about Mac's last few years in Hong Kong. When Mac had been a fucking _adult_.

How much older was Michael? Vic knew it was a few years at least. "How old was Michael then?" Vic asked. "When you were fourteen?"

"Um, nineteen? Twenty? I was nearly as tall as him already. It took me a long time to get stronger, though."

"And when you got stronger than him, did that help?"

"Some," Mac said, thoughtfully. "But I knew better than to fight back past a certain point."

"Fight back ... against ... what?" Vic asked.

Mac didn't answer.

Okay. This was a lot worse than what Vic had imagined—except of course it was Michael, so why hadn't he imagined this?

Well, because it was also Mac. And Mac didn't usually give off the vibe of somebody who'd been abused throughout his whole adolescence.

Except when he dreamed....

And also right now, pale and literally shaking in Vic's arms.

"I don't want to talk about this any more," Mac said.

And then lunged for the toilet, to be sick again.

* * *

Vic did not bring up the topic of Michael again.

He spent the next hour holding Mac, alternately making him sip water and watching him throw it up again. He had to keep him talking, but he avoided anything related to Michael. In fifteen months of working together they had accumulated plenty of shared experiences of bizarre cases that they could rehash. Nothing like a good psychotic clown story to lighten the mood.

At around the point when Vic was thinking that maybe he actually should bring Mac to the ER, that in fact he maybe should have done it as soon as he'd found him with the half-empty bottle of vodka—and knowing Mac it should have occurred to Vic that the bottle might have been _full_ when Mac had started—Vic realized that it had been over twenty minutes since the last time Mac had thrown up. His colour did seem better and he wasn't shaking anymore.

Vic led Mac to his bedroom, got him to sit on the bed, and then went to the kitchen to look for anything with electrolytes in it. There was a half-full case of Gatorade in the fridge, so Vic snagged one of the bottles and went back to Mac with it.

"Here," he said. "Now you drink this."

Mac took a couple of swallows, then looked at Vic with bloodshot eyes. "You won't tell Li Ann about this, will you?" he said.

"Um," Vic said. "I'm not prepared to promise that. She might need to know."

Mac shook her head. "Just ... please don't. It's easier for her to cope if she thinks I'm okay."

Vic felt a little bit of a sinking feeling. "Cope with what?" he asked.

"Her stuff."

"What stuff?"

Mac shook his head. "Anything she wants you to know, she can tell you."

"Okay, but..." Vic thought about the way Li Ann had frozen when Malik had casually diagnosed Mac with PTSD, that one day over breakfast. Mac knew things about Li Ann that Vic didn't, and the possible nature of those things was alarming. "Is she ... okay?"

Mac sort of waggled his head a little, like he was thinking about it. Then he said, "I think so. Mostly? But she doesn't need to deal with my—" he waved his hand vaguely, indicating the bedroom, himself, the situation, "—this."

"Okay," Vic said. He was going to have to take Mac's word for that, for now. And it was true that unlike Mac, Li Ann didn't seem to be showing any particular signs of being in crisis.

And then Vic suddenly had one of those dizzying feelings of _oh shit, that's how it works_. The parallel just popped into focus like one of those 3-D Stereogram pictures.

Mac in the soy mill, telling Vic to run.

Mac in the ER after waking up from the nightmare, telling Li Ann that he was fine, it was just a dream, he didn't even remember it.

Vic had been thinking about the soy mill on the drive home from the hospital that very night, and he'd promised himself that he would watch out for other evidence of self-sacrifice from Mac, now that he'd realized that that was a thing that Mac did. And yet he'd missed the one that he'd just seen.

Mac thought he had to sacrifice himself to protect Li Ann from the darkness of his past, or what it might dredge up for her out of her own. And maybe he was right about that; he would know better than Vic.

But here was a chance for Vic and his mundane life to really step up and contribute. "So, just to be clear," Vic said, "I don't have any problems dealing with ... this." He waved his hand around the way Mac just had. "I mean this was not my ideal way to spend a night. But, if you're ever having trouble dealing with your ... _stuff_ ... you can call me, okay?"

"Okay," Mac said.

Vic wasn't sure if he meant it. He would say it even if he didn't mean it, just to get Vic to shut up; that was obvious.

But Vic meant it, and he was going to watch a lot more carefully from now on.

"Now we're gonna lie down," Vic said. The Gatorade bottle was about half-empty, and Mac didn't seem to be drinking any more. It was time to get some sleep, and then see if he could somehow get Mac on his feet and reasonably put together in time for his 2 p.m. shift at the club tomorrow.

"Here?" Mac said. "Both of us?"

"Yes," Vic said. "Unless you'd rather I went back to the couch."

Mac shook his head.

So they lay down next to each other on Mac's bed, tucked under the covers. Mac was still wearing his suit; there'd never been a good moment to get it off of him. Vic was wearing flannel pj's, which he'd brought along in his duffle bag and then changed into after the _first_ time he'd put Mac to bed.

In the nights they'd slept together on the futon in Li Ann's apartment, Mac had always ended up cuddling Vic by the end of the night. He did it in his sleep; he couldn't help it. Vic had objected out of startled shock the first time, and out of habit the next three nights (four, counting New Year's).

But maybe it was about time to admit to himself that, actually, he'd liked it.

"Oh," Mac said, when Vic rolled onto his side and tucked an arm around Mac. "Um. Vic?"

"Is this okay?" Vic asked. Murmured, really, in Mac's ear. "If you aren't comfortable, I won't do it."

"It's okay," Mac said. "I'm just a little confused."

"Let's just sleep," Vic urged. "We can talk about it later."

"Okay," Mac said. And one little shudder raced through him, and Vic worried for a second, thinking that maybe this hadn't been a good idea after all—but then Mac rolled onto his side too, facing Vic, and tucked his head under Vic's chin, and just seemed to go limp. Totally relaxed.

And Vic hugged him a little tighter for a moment, then closed his eyes and let his arm relax over Mac.

Smelling his scent, his shampoo and a bit of sweat and—unfortunately—the alcohol. Hearing his soft, increasingly even breaths.

Vic felt protective. And complete, in a way he hadn't in a long time. And sleepy.

And he didn't stop to worry about what the hell it meant that he'd decided to crawl into bed with another man and cuddle him. It was Mac, and Vic wanted to, and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reality check! Mac was displaying multiple symptoms of acute alcohol poisoning, and Vic definitely, absolutely, should have brought him to the ER. Don't try this at home, kids!


	6. Chapter 6

The front door of the club was locked, so Li Ann buzzed the doorbell.

It felt weird to be ringing a doorbell on a nightclub. Kind of incongruous. Of course, it was also incongruous to be standing outside of one in the middle of the afternoon, in the brightly-glittering January sunshine.

The door opened. It was Mac, in a suit and sunglasses. He quirked an eyebrow. "Hi there," he said.

Li Ann walked in. "Is Jasmine here yet? Or anybody else?"

"Nope, you're the first. The club owner gave me a 20-minute orientation, and now I'm here on my own till the bartender arrives at six. The owner told me to expect you and Jasmine, though, it's all legit."

Li Ann laid her coat, hat and gloves down on a table. She'd been wearing the fur-lined leather gloves that Vic had given her for Christmas; they were really warm and comfortable. "How are you doing?" she asked Mac.

"Fine, you?" he said.

She gave Mac a careful look. He was still wearing the sunglasses; that was a thing he did sometimes, wore sunglasses indoors. She knew that sometimes he did it because he thought it looked cool, and sometimes he did it because he was hung over.

Right now he did look a little pale.

"Did you spend the night at Vic's?" she asked.

"Uh, he came over to my place in the end," Mac said.

"Okay." Li Ann felt a release of tension that she hadn't quite been aware of holding. "Did you talk?"

"Yeah," Mac said, and didn't elaborate.

"And ... things are okay?" She was reluctant to be more specific.

Mac gave a little nod/shrug combination. "Well, you know Vic. He's ... solid."

"He is," Li Ann agreed. Then she went and gave Mac a hug.

Mac hugged her back, and they held on tight for a good long minute.

Li Ann had been worried about Mac, but not anymore—not if Vic was there for him.

Finally she backed away. "No gun?" she mentioned, since she hadn't felt a holster when she'd hugged him.

"I told the club owner I was licensed, but he said he didn't want me to carry one."

Li Ann frowned. "Are you sure that's a good idea? You know what you might be facing."

"Yeah, well." Mac gave a wry grin. "That's what ankle holsters are for."

Just then, the doorbell buzzed. Mac went to answer it.

The person who came in was ... not exactly Jasmine. Li Ann recognized her eyes, her chin—but this was a forty-something man with short, thinning hair. He was wearing an expensive-looking suit, and carrying a garment bag.

"Hi," he said to Mac first. "You must be the new security."

"Mac," said Mac, holding out his hand.

"Benjamin," said not-Jasmine, giving Mac's hand a firm shake.

Well, Li Ann hadn't shown up for rehearsal in drag, either.

Benjamin came over to Li Ann, giving her an amused grin. "A bit different from last night, huh?"

"A little," Li Ann said.

"You know, I actually never caught your name," Benjamin said.

"Li Ann." She held out her hand to shake; Benjamin shook it, and then stood on tiptoes to kiss her cheeks.

"And when you're performing?"

"Um," Li Ann hesitated. "I don't know. I've never performed before."

"Oy vey," Benjamin said. "We have to _name_ you!"

Li Ann blinked. What with being a secret agent, she had a lot of experience with fake names, but this was a new situation. "Oh," she said. "Um."

"Crispy Eel!" Mac called out from over by the door.

Benjamin snorted.

Li Ann rolled her eyes. "That's not exactly tango-themed."

"It is a little phallic, though," Benjamin pointed out. "Which is always nice. And you don't _need_ to refer to the tango."

"How about just 'Lee'," Li Ann suggested. She was never really enthusiastic about aliases, honestly.

"Lee Way!" Mac suggested gleefully.

Benjamin gave a delighted laugh. "I like it! Spelled how?"

"L-E-E-space-W-A-Y," Li Ann said, which she supposed meant that she'd just acquiesced to it.

"I like you, Mac!" Benjamin called out. "Where the hell did Casey find you?"

"Uh, well, I just walked in yesterday with my CV," Mac said.

"So, just checking," Benjamin said, "Casey did mention at some point that this was a _gay_ bar, right? I only ask because I'm about to go put on a dress," he lifted the garment bag, "and I don't want any unpleasant surprises."

"Yeah," Mac said. "Well. Actually I've been here before. Recreationally."

"Oh," Benjamin said, lifting his eyebrows. "Are you ... single?"

Mac laughed. "More or less permanently," he said.

Benjamin held up a finger, twirled it. "We'll talk later," he said. "Now I've got to get dressed."

Benjamin disappeared into the back room with his garment bag. Li Ann turned to Mac. "Were you flirting with Benjamin just now?" she asked.

Mac shrugged. "Sure."

Li Ann frowned. "Are you going to _sleep_ with him?"

Mac grinned. "Dunno. Maybe. He's cute."

Li Ann crossed her arms and gave Mac a quelling look. "Don't," she said. "We're _working_ , remember? This is a _case_."

"Doesn't mean we can't have fun," Mac said, but he retreated to the front door, going back to his ostensible security-guard role.

Benjamin returned, wearing the red dress and high heels from last night but otherwise still looking like himself. He was carrying a portable CD player, which he put on a table at the edge of the dance floor and plugged in.

Li Ann went over to him. "Should I call you Benjamin now?" she asked. "Or Jasmine?"

He shrugged. "Either is fine. Well, I'm not in make-up, so I guess you can go with Benjamin. I just figured I'd better wear the shoes and dress for practising the dance."

At that point, they got to work.

It had been close to three years since Li Ann had seriously practised the tango, and she felt a little rusty. Nevertheless, her muscle memory was intact, and her intellectual understanding of the moves came back quickly.

She and Benjamin soon figured out that of the two of them, Li Ann was the better-trained, and she naturally took the lead in terms of working out their choreography. They did need to trade expertise a lot, since Li Ann was more familiar with the woman's role and Benjamin with the man's.

This was going to be a set-piece and they wanted it to be showy, so they agreed that they wouldn't include any improv; every step would be planned and practised. They still had ten days before the performance, and comparing schedules (Li Ann declared herself "self-employed, and flexible,") they decided they could fit in four more practises, so they could afford to be a bit ambitious.

"Self-employed as a what, by the way?" Benjamin asked as they took a water break.

"Mixed martial arts instructor," Li Ann said. "Private lessons."

"Ah," Benjamin said. "That explains the—" he held up his wrist, mimed the submission hold Li Ann had done on him, "—last night."

"Sorry about that," Li Ann said again. "I guess I was ... jumpy. It was my first time out."

"Yeah, I got that." Benjamin tilted his head at her. "And now I've got you performing on centre stage for a crowd of two hundred. Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Sure," Li Ann said. "I think it'll be fun."

Benjamin looked a little uncertain. "Was that sarcasm? Or did you mean it? I really couldn't tell."

Li Ann gave a slightly uncomfortable shrug. "People find me hard to read," she admitted. "But I meant it." She sipped at her water. "What about you—what do you do?"

"Lawyer," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Oh yes. Good Jewish boy here, don't you know. My mother was only going to accept a doctor or a lawyer, and the sight of blood makes me queasy, so..." he shrugged.

"Does your mother know about this?" Li Ann asked, poking the hem of his dress with her booted toe.

"Absolutely! She's my biggest fan."

Now Li Ann was the one who wasn't sure if she was hearing sarcasm or not. "Really?"

"Really," Benjamin said. "She already has front-row tickets for the Two-Ring Circus. She'll be there with bells on."

"That's nice," Li Ann said, meaning it.

"Yeah, my mother is great. I'm a lucky guy," Benjamin said. "How about you; do your parents know what you do?"

Li Ann put her water bottle down. "Let's get back to work."

One nice thing about gay men that she'd figured out from Mac's breakfast dates—they all understood if you didn't want to talk about your family.

* * *

Li Ann wanted to put in a lift, but she couldn't remember exactly how it went. That is, she sort of remembered how to _be_ lifted, but she had no idea how the man's part worked. Benjamin was no help—he'd never done one.

Mac was over by the door, looking bored.

"Mac, come here!" Li Ann called.

He obeyed. "What do you want?" he asked.

She reached up to his face and eased his sunglasses off of him. He blinked at her; his eyes were a bit bloodshot.

"I need you to show me the lift," she said. "Are you up for it?"

"Um, yeah," he said. "Sure."

Benjamin cocked his head. "You know each other."

"Yeah," Mac said. "We didn't mention? She's my sister."

Li Ann gave Mac a quick warning look—they hadn't planned to make that part of the story.

"Well now I see the family resemblance," Benjamin said, in a jokey tone that clearly meant he wasn't sure how seriously to take Mac's statement.

"Come on," Li Ann said instead of elaborating. "Let's try that lift."

As soon as she had Mac and the music going, Li Ann easily remembered her own part of the lift. They did it a couple of times, just to be sure.

"Okay," Li Ann said. "Now try it with Benjamin, so I can watch how you do it."

Benjamin took Li Ann's place, and Mac took him through the steps—slowly and carefully the first time, pausing before the lift and then going for it.

"Wow, you're strong!" Benjamin said with a little laugh when Mac put him down.

"Yeah, don't worry, so's Li Ann," Mac said. Li Ann smiled.

Mac and Benjamin practised the lift three more times while Li Ann watched carefully, taking note of how Mac set his feet, how he shifted his weight and directed Benjamin's movement. When she thought she knew what to do, she eased herself in and tapped Mac on the shoulder. "Mind if I cut in?" she said with a smirk.

Mac caught her eye, and clearly remembered the same thing she just had—their little scene in the ballroom dancing competition at the top of the Hong Kong Trade Association tower. They'd been creating a distraction while Michael stole some files in a nearby room.

Rather than just stepping aside, Mac stumbled dramatically as though she had pushed him, and then he fell, going into an outright head-over-heels roll before he came back to his feet. Li Ann, meanwhile, stepped in smoothly and took the astonished Benjamin's hands, and led him through a few more steps before she had to stop because Benjamin was laughing so hard.

"That was amazing!" he said. "You _have_ to do it in the show!"

"Um, I can't be in the show," Mac said. "I'm _working_ here that night. Security."

"Our song lasts three and a half minutes," Benjamin said. "You can take a fifteen minute break, right? I'll talk to Ebony, I'll tell her she has to let you. Please, will you do it?" He pressed his hands together in exaggerated supplication and fluttered his eyelashes. "Pleeease?"

Mac met Li Ann's gaze. She shrugged.

In terms of the _actual_ job they were doing, every chance to become more deeply involved in the show was probably valuable. "Do it," she said. "It'll be fun."

Mac grinned widely. "All right," he said. "In that case, I have a few ideas about our act."


	7. Chapter 7

Vic got to Li Ann's place at about a quarter past ten. Mac and Li Ann were at the dining table, eating noodles.

"Hey," Mac said. "We've been waiting for you. How'd it go?"

"Ugh," Vic said. "Don't even ask."

"Well, are you making progress?" Li Ann asked.

Vic pulled a chair around so that he could sit on it backwards and rest his arms on its back. "Sure," he said. "3-Jay invited me to go out riding with him and some guys."

"Bit cold for that, isn't it?" Mac said.

Vic shrugged. "We weren't out for long. Less than an hour. It was fine, the roads are clear. Then we went back to 3-Jay's shop and sat around and talked for a couple of hours. Drank a couple of beers."

"And?" Li Ann said.

"And, ugh." Vic shook his head. "I had to say things, you guys. To fit in."

Li Ann put a hand on his arm, squeezed. "You're undercover. That's the job."

Vic nodded. And that's why he was here—to let Li Ann and Mac remind him of that. Reassure him that the guy who'd said those things so easily, without choking even a little—that wasn't Vic, it was just a skin he'd put on for a job.

"How about you?" he asked. "How'd it go at the club?"

"Amazing," Mac said. "I'm in the show now."

"You're _what_?" Vic said. "In drag?"

"Nah," Mac said. "Well, probably not. We haven't really talked about my costume yet."

"Mac and I are going to fight over who gets to dance with Jasmine," Li Ann said. She grinned. "I'm going to win."

"We're combining tango and kung fu," Mac said gleefully. He did a quick flappy thing with his hands, including sound effects, and Li Ann giggled.

Vic was relieved to see Mac looking relaxed and happy, and healthy. That morning, it had taken Vic about three hours to convince Mac to eat a piece of dry toast, and Vic had _barely_ managed to get Mac to keep his 2 p.m. appointment with his new boss at the club—in fact, Vic had had to drive him there, which was not good for either of their covers.

They hadn't talked about the previous night.

Vic had been wondering about what would happen tonight. He'd been prepared for the idea that Mac would need company again. But actually, as it turned out, Mac seemed totally fine.

They all hung out and chatted for another quarter of an hour, and then the guys left, separately; Mac first this time.

And if Vic felt a little regret, a little loneliness, as he turned the key in the lock of his own empty apartment—well, that was a familiar feeling. It wouldn't kill him.

* * *

Vic's peaceful, lonely sleep was suddenly pierced by the jangling ring of his bedside phone at—according to the glowing digits of his digital clock—1:30 am.

Suppressing a groan, and bracing himself for anything, he picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Vic, I need you."

"Mac? What's going on?" But it was no use—there'd already been a click, and the dial tone started.

Vic groaned out loud this time, and pulled himself out of bed.

Seventeen minutes later, dressed and armed, he was in the outer foyer of Mac's building, leaning on the buzzer. Repeatedly.

"Come _on_ , Mac," Vic muttered to the silent grill. " _You_ fucking called _me_." Several possible alarming scenarios had occurred to Vic in his truck on the way over. He was trying not to conjure any of them into reality by thinking about them too hard, but the longer Mac didn't answer his buzzer, the more worried Vic got. How long had Vic been buzzing now? A solid minute?

Just as Vic was starting to wonder whether it was a worse idea to call 911 or just to shoot out the lock mechanism, there was finally a response: the lock release on the inner door sounded.

"Okay," Vic said, and pushed his way in.

Vic was feeling more than a little uneasy about the whole situation—the terse phone message, the lack of voice contact when he got buzzed in. So he got off the elevator two floors early, and took the fire stairs the rest of the way.

The hallway on Mac's floor was clear, though, and nothing seemed amiss outside Mac's apartment. There was a faint sound of nightclub-style music coming through the closed door. Vic touched his gun but didn't draw it; he tried the doorknob, and found it unlocked.

As soon as Vic opened the door more than a crack, he was hit by a wall of sound. Mac had the speakers cranked up _really_ high, Jesus. Taking a moment to marvel at the quality of the soundproofing in Mac's building—if _Vic_ had been playing music at this volume after midnight, his left, right, above, below, _and_ across-the-hall neighbours would've called the police with noise complaints by now—Vic eased through the door, shut it behind him, and scanned the visible parts of Mac's apartment.

The lights were all on. Mac wasn't immediately in sight, but there were the vodka bottle and the shot glass again, back on the coffee table.

Vic took a couple of careful steps, getting past the corner of the entryway. He was on his toes, ready to duck, grab his gun, whatever. But when he looked to the left, he finally saw Mac.

Mac was over at his home gym, hitting the speed bag. He was wearing nothing but a pair of black silk boxer shorts.

Okay.

Since there did not, in fact, seem to be a crisis happening, Vic took the time to take off his boots and hang up his coat, leaving the gun in the coat. Then he went looking for Mac's stereo, so that he could turn the music down.

"Oh," Mac said, when the noise level dropped. "Hi." He didn't stop hitting the punching bag.

Vic didn't go straight over to Mac—he went to check the vodka bottle first, to get a better idea of what he was dealing with.

It was the same bottle from last night, Vic was pretty sure, and as far as he could tell the level of the contents hadn't dropped since the last time he'd seen it. Vic put down the bottle and picked up the shot glass, sniffed it. It looked and smelled clean.

 _Then_ he went over to Mac.

"Hey," Mac said, tapping the bag again. He was breathing a little hard, and gleaming with sweat.

"Yeah, hey," Vic said. "Thanks for letting me in. Eventually."

Mac didn't react to the annoyance in Vic's tone. "Sorry, were you ringing for very long? I didn't hear the buzzer at first."

Vic fought an urge to pull out his own hair. "You _called_ me. You asked me to come over. In the middle of the night. You could have fucking _listened_ for me."

"Sorry," Mac said again, and it looked like that was all Vic was going to get. Mac just kept hitting the bag.

"Maybe you could give me a set of keys," Vic suggested, more out of frustration than out of any reasonable hope of progress. "Save me from busting down your door one of these days?"

Mac stopped hitting the bag, finally. He looked at Vic for a minute, breathing hard. Then he went over to a corner of the room, to a small crumpled pile of clothes. He picked up the pants, fished in the pocket, and tossed a jingling bundle in Vic's direction. "Here, take these."

Vic snatched the keys out of the air. "Uh, do you have a _spare_ set?"

Mac was already back at the punching bag. "Don't worry, I'll just pick the locks until I get a replacement from the building manager."

"Okay then." Vic looked at the keys with bemusement. "I think this one is your _car_ key."

"Oh," Mac said, without looking over. "Well, take that one off and leave it on the counter."

Vic decided to stop objecting and just go with it. He separated the car key and set it aside, as instructed.

Then he tossed the keys in the air once, contemplatively, and put them in his pocket.

So he had the keys to Mac's apartment now. All right. That was new.

And he was here at two o'clock in the morning ... why?

Vic took a moment to really contemplate the situation here, and watch Mac.

There was no question, Mac was acting weird. The _Vic, I need you_ call—and now he was ignoring Vic, and just doing a workout? At two in the morning?

"Mac," Vic tried, "Why am I here?"

"I don't know," Mac said, without breaking his rhythm at the bag.

Vic tried not to grind his teeth. "You _called_ me."

"You told me to," Mac said.

"I what?"

"Yesterday." Mac paused his assault on the bag, just long enough to wipe the sweat off his forehead before it went in his eyes.

"Oh, Jesus Mac." When Mac had wiped his face, Vic had seen his hand. Mac's knuckles were swollen, and scraped bloody in places. Vic stepped forward and caught Mac's wrist, stopped him from hitting the bag again. This brought him right up against Mac's nearly-naked body. Vic could feel the heat coming off of him. "Why the fuck aren't you wearing gloves?"

Mac regarded his injured knuckles with a sort of abstract expression. "Well, there wasn't time," he said. He didn't make any attempt to extract his wrist from Vic's grip.

Vic raised an eyebrow. "Uh, the punching bag snuck up behind you and attacked you?"

Mac shook his head. He seemed like he was about to say something, and then he stopped. Bit his lip. Looked over at the wall. And then said, "I had to do something with my hands or I was gonna drink the rest of the bottle."

Oh, shit.

Vic's annoyance evaporated, and he felt a surge of nervous concern. It was true, Vic had told Mac last night that he should call Vic as an alternative to deliberately getting blackout-drunk. And Mac had apparently just done so, and that was good, right? But on the other hand, now Vic had to figure out how to support a sober and apparently freaking-out Mac.

He was still holding Mac's wrist.

"So, do you want to talk?" Vic said, awkwardly letting go and stepping back.

"No," Mac said. He was looking pretty much everywhere but at Vic. He shuddered.

"Hey, uh, you're going to get chilled," Vic said. "You're covered in sweat. Maybe you should go have a hot shower."

Somewhat to Vic's surprise, Mac didn't argue. He just said, "Okay." And then, finally looking at Vic, with a kind of desperate glance, "Will you stay?"

"Yeah," Vic said. "Definitely. Don't worry about that."

* * *

While Mac showered, Vic poured the rest of the vodka down the sink. It just seemed like a good idea.

When Mac emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, Vic shooed him back in and made Mac hold his hands out while Vic put antibiotic cream over all the scrapes, and wrapped them in gauze. He wanted to scold Mac for injuring himself, but since he understood what the alternative had been he held his tongue.

"I'm glad you called me," he said instead. It was easier to say when he was looking at Mac's hands instead of his face.

"Really?" Mac said. "Because I think I just fucked up your night. You probably wanted to sleep."

"I will sleep," Vic said. "Here. With you." He forced himself to look Mac in the eye. "I can crash on the couch or in your bed. Your call. But I'm not leaving."

Mac looked down at his hands, then back up at Vic. "I'd rather have you in the bed," he said.

"Okay, good," Vic said. "That's my preference too."

Mac blinked. "Why?"

Oh, man. Vic hadn't anticipated having to explain himself.

Well. Mac had made himself pretty vulnerable here, calling Vic over like this. It was high time for some reciprocal truth-telling.

"I've been lonely," Vic said. It came out a little gruff, and he found that he was avoiding eye contact again. Then he accidentally caught Mac's eye in the bathroom mirror, and somehow held it. "For a _long time_ I've been lonely. And sleeping with you has been ... nice."

Mac's expression in the mirror was still worried. "Even with the nightmares?" he asked.

"Ah, yeah." Vic had slept with Mac six times so far—or, actually seven, counting that first night when Li Ann had been in bed with them too. That was five nights while Mac had been recovering from his concussion, plus New Year's and last night. Three of those nights, Mac had woken up yelling and thrashing from nightmares—including the one memorable time he had fallen out of bed, resulting in a middle-of-the-night trip to the ER. Two other nights—New Year's and last night—Vic and/or Mac had been drunk. That left _two_ peaceful nights they had slept together. So why did Vic have such a relaxed, contented feeling when he thought about spending the night with Mac? "Well, the nightmares aren't great," Vic conceded. "I wish you didn't have to deal with them. But the, um—" why was this so hard to say? "—I like the cuddling," he finally managed to finish.

He felt himself blushing.

Mac's eyes opened wide, in startled delight. "You _do_?"

"Yeah. Well." Vic rubbed his neck uncomfortably. He really hoped Mac wasn't going to rib him over this; he didn't know if he could take it. "I guess I've been a bit touch-starved."

"Okay," Mac said. He made a little aborted movement with his hand, like he was going to touch Vic but then he'd thought better of it. "So let's go to bed."

* * *

Vic hadn't brought an overnight bag, this time, so he borrowed a set of pyjamas from Mac. They were sleek, navy blue satin, and just a little too big for Vic. He went to the bathroom to get changed in private, which he had to admit to himself was a little weird—he and Mac had gotten dressed in front of each other plenty of times in the locker room at the Agency's gym.

But then all of those times had been before Vic had found out that Mac was bisexual, and attracted to Vic.

And now Vic was hiding in the bathroom to get changed, but about to crawl into bed with Mac for cuddles?

Okay, don't think about it too hard.

The lights were off and Mac was already in the bed, lying on his back. Vic climbed in, did a quick internal assessment of his courage, and then snuggled up to Mac's side and put an arm over him. "Good night."

Mac didn't say anything for the space of three breaths—which Vic could feel, Mac's chest gently rising and falling under Vic's arm. Then Mac said, hesitantly, "Do you want to kiss?"

"What?" Vic felt a quick surge of adrenaline. "No!" He fought back his impulse to roll away—Mac hadn't moved, he'd just asked politely. "No," Vic managed to say again more calmly, and he squeezed his arm tighter around Mac for a moment, in a sort of hug. "That's not what this is."

"Okay," Mac said, and closed his eyes.

And that was when Vic realized that his cock had just gotten hard.

Oh, God.

He could feel his boner pressing against Mac's hip. Vic had to assume that Mac could feel it too. Mac wasn't reacting, though; he'd just peacefully closed his eyes, and it looked like he was ready to go to sleep.

Vic decided he was better off _not_ moving; moving would just call attention to it.

And why, _why_ had Vic's cock leapt to attention the moment Mac had mentioned kissing?

Vic was straight. He wasn't attracted to Mac.

Mac, with his warm, strong, nice-smelling body that Vic was currently cuddling.

Mac, who could make a joke out of anything and still catch the bad guys.

Mac, who would absolutely, demonstrably, lay down his life to save Vic's when the situation arose.

Oh, Jesus. This surge of affection Vic was feeling, of protectiveness, of wanting to be _with_ Mac and wanting to hold him and not let go....

Vic was starting to have _feelings_ for _Mac_.

What the fuck was Vic going to do now?

He would ignore them, he decided, and hope they went away.

* * *

Vic came muzzily awake to the awareness of movement. He blinked into the darkness and identified the source—Mac, rolling away from him.

Vic sat up just in time to see Mac vanishing over the side of the bed. There was a muffled thud, and swearing.

"Shit, Mac, are you okay?" Vic asked, peering over the edge.

Mac was sprawled in a heap on the floor, his head in his hands. He looked up at Vic's question. "Fine, yeah," he said. "Sorry I woke you up."

Vic extended a hand to Mac to help him back up, which Mac accepted. "Not my main concern here," Vic said. "Jesus, you weren't kidding about your tendency to fall out of bed. Have you ever considered installing _safety rails_?"

"I don't mind falling," Mac said. He crawled back under the covers. "It wakes me up."

"Seriously?" Vic shook his head. That was messed up. "Look, you've got to do something about that. You could get hurt."

Mac gave him a skeptical look. "It's, like, three feet."

"You could sprain a wrist," Vic said. He wasn't letting go of this. "You wouldn't be able to hold a gun. _Then_ what would you do?"

"Hold it with my other hand?" Mac said.

"I'm fixing this," Vic declared. "Get off the bed."

Mac looked a little exasperated, but he apparently realized that it would be futile to try to stand in Vic's way now.

Once they were both off the bed, Vic braced his hands on the frame and gave it a shove. It wasn't too hard to move. He kept pushing until the opposite side of the bed was hard up against the wall. "There," he said. "You sleep on the inside."

"What if I want to get up?" Mac asked, eyeing Vic kind of sideways.

"Then you crawl over me," Vic said.

"Um." Mac looked at Vic again. He seemed a bit distressed. "I wasn't kidding, though. About it being better to fall off and wake up. The dreams ... aren't nice."

Shit. At this point Vic really just wanted to hug Mac, to hold him tight until it made things _better_. Instead, he promised: "I'll wake you up."

Mac seemed to think about that for a bit. Finally he took a deep breath, and said, "Okay." And he crawled back into the bed.

Vic followed him, claiming the outside. And then he lay there for a moment, feeling pretty damn pleased with himself for having done something concrete, and helpful.

Well. It was a baby step.

"Uh, do you want to talk about the dream?" Vic said, rolling up on his elbow.

"No," Mac said. He didn't open his eyes.

"Maybe it would help," Vic said.

"Fuck no," Mac said. "It's bad enough dreaming about that stuff. I don't want to think about it when I'm awake, too." And then he rolled over, showing his back to Vic.

"Okay," Vic said.

All right. Maybe he hadn't fixed very much.

Vic closed his eyes. He listened to Mac breathe. And he wondered: what the fuck was he trying to do, here?

He wanted to help Mac, but Mac wasn't asking for help. Or rather, he was, but only in a very limited way. He'd called Vic over to help him make the choice to not get drunk tonight.

Mac had PTSD. He had nightmares. He had Michael Tang in his head.

And Vic had what to offer, in the face of all that?

Lacking satisfactory answers, Vic drifted eventually into an uneasy sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

"What happened to your hands?" Li Ann asked as soon as Mac opened the door to the club.

"Hi to you, too," Mac said, standing aside to let her in.

Li Ann smiled slightly. "Hi," she said, and then went up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. "But really, how did you get hurt? You were fine last night. Did somebody attack the club?"

"No, it's been dead quiet," Mac assured her. "Don't worry about my hands; it's nothing, it was stupid. I was working the speed bag without gloves. They're just a bit bruised. Vic made me wrap them up."

Li Ann gave him a puzzled look and went to lay her coat on a table. "This morning?" she asked.

Mac considered lying, but decided a half-truth would be better. "No, he came over to my place last night."

"After you guys left?" Li Ann asked. "I thought you were both just going home. It was late."

Mac thought about how much he wanted to reveal. He sure as hell wasn't going to tell Li Ann about his desperate decision to summon Vic to save him from the bottom of the vodka bottle.

On the other hand, he really thought she should know some of what was going on with Vic.

"Well, he stayed over," Mac said.

Li Ann gave him a sharp look. "What? At your place?"

"Yeah, um." Mac rubbed his neck and gave her a sheepish look. "We slept together."

"What?!"

"I mean _slept_ , though. In the same bed. Like when we were at your place."

Li Ann shot him an expression of equal parts astonishment, confusion, and amusement. "Is something _happening_ , Mac? Between you and Vic?"

"I don't _know_ ," Mac confessed. "Li Ann, I'm really confused. He said he likes cuddling me. But he doesn't want to kiss me."

Li Ann seemed to think about that one for a minute. Then she shook her head. "I think you're really just going to have to talk to Vic about that."

Which was no help.

Benjamin arrived just then, ending that conversation. He gave the bandages on Mac's hands a curious look when he came through the door, but he didn't ask about them. He changed straight into his dress and heels, and they got to work on the choreography.

It was coming along nicely. The piece started with Mac and Benjamin doing the tango, following very standard, classic forms. Then Li Ann cut in and dramatically threw Mac aside. Mac came back, he challenged Li Ann, and then they had a showy fight while Benjamin watched with his hands over his mouth and his eyes popping. Finally Li Ann took Mac out with a spinning kick to the head, reclaimed Ben, and did a dramatic final 45 seconds of tango, finishing with the lift and a dip.

"You two are amazing!" Benjamin enthused when they stopped for a water break. "I am so glad I discovered you!" He tilted his head thoughtfully. "You know what would really make your fight scene _pop_? Some percussion sounds on the hits."

"Well, we're not going to _actually_ hit each other," Li Ann pointed out, looking wary.

"No, no, obviously. I mean with an instrument. Like a drum, or wooden blocks."

"Oh!" Mac said, getting a hit of inspiration. "How about you do that? We could have a pair of blocks at the side of the stage, and you could pick them up when the fight starts. You could hit them whenever we do a punch or a kick. Ham it up, make it dramatic, wince and look appalled at the same time. It'll give you more to do during the fight section, anyway."

Benjamin rewarded Mac with a big grin, and clapped his hands. "Mac, I _really_ like you! You have a real instinct for showmanship. Are you sure you've never performed before?"

"Not like this," Mac said, honestly.

"Speaking of which," Benjamin said, "We still have to decide how to dress you."

"It can't be elaborate," Mac pointed out. "I'll be working."

"True, but you'll have time for at least a quick change." Ben gave Mac a thoughtful look, pursing his lips.

"Do you want me in a dress?" Mac asked. He remembered that he'd volunteered for that at the start of the case, but the Director had demurred. It would be kind of funny if he ended up in drag anyway.

"Well," Ben said, "First we have to figure out what we're saying about gender."

Li Ann took a sip from her water bottle, looking intrigued. "We're saying something about gender?"

"Always!" Ben said. He tapped his lips with his fingers. "I'm a man, dressed as a woman. Li Ann's a woman, dressed as a man. If Mac starts out dressed as a woman, then we're starting with a woman/woman or man/man pairing, depending on how you look at it, and then when Li Ann wins my hand the pairing becomes heterosexual—either straight or gender-flipped, depending on the level that you read. Hm. No, we can't have that. Mac, you're going to have to be a man."

"Okay," Mac agreed, feeling bemused.

"I don't want you _too_ straight, though. Do you mind getting queered up a bit?"

"Um," Mac said. He caught Li Ann smirking. "Probably not. What are you thinking?"

Ben eyed him up and down. "Eyeliner. Heavy, to show up onstage. Black. It would be easier if you're wearing it ahead of time, so you don't have to mess with makeup during the quick change. Would you be comfortable showing up for work like that?"

"Sure," Mac said generously. "I mean, look at where I'm working."

"Fishnet shirt," Ben went on. "I bet you have amazing abs."

Mac grinned. "Oh, I do."

Li Ann, having taken an ill-timed sip, snorted a little water.

"Black leather pants," Ben said.

Mac shook his head at that one. "No, I wouldn't be able to move freely enough for the fight."

"You will if they're sufficiently _high quality_ leather pants," Ben said.

Mac considered what a pair of pants like that would cost. They'd have to be tailor-made; nothing off the rack was going to fit him like that. And considering that he was supposedly making $10 an hour working here—"That's a little out of my price range," he said, making himself sound a bit sheepish.

"Right, that," Ben said. "Well, don't worry about the money. I'll buy them for you."

Mac cleared his throat. "Er, not to be awkward about it, but just to be clear—Li Ann told me that I can't sleep with you."

Ben let out a startled laugh, and then shot a rueful look Li Ann's way. "No, she's right, you're much too young for me."

Illogically—considering he was the one who'd just said that he wouldn't sleep with Ben—Mac felt vaguely offended. "I'm twenty-six!" he said.

" _Exactly_ ," Ben said.

"I haven't been _too young_ for anything since I was fourteen years old," Mac insisted.

That didn't come out as funny as he'd thought it would.

There was a slightly-too-long silence, then Ben said "Honey, I'm not going to ask you what you meant by that, because I can probably guess, and it's sad, and we don't want to be sad right now." He was eyeing Mac now in a way that made Mac feel uncomfortably exposed. Mac regretted making that remark.

Then Mac caught a glimpse of the aggressively blank expression that Li Ann had taken on, and he _really_ regretted his remark.

"So, the pants," Mac said quickly, brightly, putting on a smile. "No strings attached?"

"The pants will be string-free," Ben promised. "Don't worry about how much they cost. I'm a high-priced divorce lawyer, I can afford it."

Mac tilted his head, thinking that one through. "Divorce lawyer, huh? That's a bit ironic, for a marriage fundraiser. Looking to expand your market?"

"In all seriousness, yes," Ben said. "The legislation surrounding dissolution of marriage exists to _protect_ people. As long as same-sex marriage remains illegal, when a same-sex relationship ends, there's no protection under law for either of the parties—not even if they've been living together for twenty years, not even if one partner was economically dependent on the other."

"I never thought about that," Mac admitted.

"Who does, when they're young?" Ben asked, with a wry smile. Then he clapped his hands twice. "All right, kids, let's get back to work!"

* * *

After the rehearsal, Li Ann headed off, and Ben went to the back room to change into his street clothes. Mac settled back into his position by the door.

On his way out, Ben stopped by Mac. "I'd like to get you fitted for the pants tomorrow," he said. "What time does Casey have you starting here?"

"2 p.m.," Mac said.

"Okay, how about you meet me at Leather Daddies at 11:30 tomorrow morning? Do you know it? 69 Wellesley Street East."

Mac shrugged. "Never been there, but I guess I can find it."

"Great. After the fitting I'll buy you lunch." He held up a finger to stop Mac from responding. "And I just want to assure you again, despite whatever experiences you might have had in the past, there is nothing transactional about this. You won't owe me anything. You're doing a favour for _me_ by being in this piece, and I want our costumes to be snazzy." He laughed. "You know, before you and Li Ann came along, my plan for the fundraiser was me standing alone on-stage, lip-syncing to _My Heart Will Go On_. You two have elevated my performance, and I thank you." Benjamin sketched a little curtsy, which looked a bit odd from a man in a suit.

Mac wondered what the Director was going to think of all this. "Happy to be of service," he said.


	9. Chapter 9

It was after midnight when Vic managed to extract himself from 3-Jay and his buddies. Too late to show up at Li Ann's, Vic decided; she was probably already asleep.

The Director had told him to check in with Li Ann and/or Mac every day, but Vic wasn't feeling desperate tonight. The Dog Pack guys had been watching hockey, drinking a few beers, and behaving almost like decent, normal human beings. It hadn't been a bad night.

By the time he got to his truck, Vic had decided that he might as well head straight home. Only the thing was, when Vic fished in his pocket for his keys, he came up with Mac's keys instead.

He looked at them, and thought about it.

Vic didn't _need_ company tonight (though sure, it would be nice)—but maybe Mac did. The past couple of nights had been pretty intense.

Vic got in his truck and started driving to Mac's place, but he kept second-guessing himself.

What if Mac was already asleep? He probably would be. Vic was pretty sure Mac had had an early shift at the bar again, doing afternoon security and ending at nine when the regular guy came on—that had been the deal for the past couple of days. Maybe Mac had gone over to Li Ann's for a while, had a late supper, but for sure he'd be home and in bed by now.

Well, but Vic didn't have to wake Mac up. He had a key now. Vic could just slip in quietly, and...

And?

Vic had made a promise last night. He'd said he would wake Mac up if he was having a nightmare.

Well, but that hadn't been an _ongoing_ commitment.

Mac would find it pretty weird if Vic let himself into Mac's apartment and just crawled into his bed. Wouldn't he?

Well, maybe not. It was the kind of thing Mac would do. _Had_ done.

And Mac had given Vic his keys.

The next thing Vic knew, he was parking across the street from Mac's building.

Okay, then. He was doing this.

* * *

Vic eased open the door to Mac's place gently, keeping it quiet. It was a quarter to one in the morning, after all. Vic didn't want to wake Mac up. He could just slip in and sleep on the couch.

Yes, that was a better plan. He'd sleep on the couch.

As soon as the door was open a crack, though, he saw that the lights were on inside. Apparently Mac wasn't asleep after all.

Vic opened the door the rest of the way—and found himself facing the barrel of a gun.

"Jesus!" he yelped, raising his hands.

"Oh, it's you." Mac set the gun down on the coffee table. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Vic took a moment to let his heartbeat settle down again, then he closed the door behind him, took off his coat, and assessed the scene before him.

Mac, sitting on the couch, still dressed in the black t-shirt and slacks he'd put on for working at the club.

On the coffee table: a new vodka bottle, open; a shot glass; and a gun.

This wasn't necessarily as bad as it looked. Right? _Fuck._

Vic took a deep breath, walked in, and sat down next to Mac, on his right. Not making any sudden moves, Vic put his hand on the gun and slid it to the right end of the table, away from Mac. Mac didn't react, other than tracking the action with his eyes, so for his next trick Vic picked up the vodka bottle, checked it, and put it down again next to the gun. Out of easy reach for Mac.

The bottle that Vic had emptied into the sink last night had been some kind of fancy brand with actual Cyrillic lettering. This one was just a Smirnoff, and it hadn't been in Mac's apartment last night—Vic had checked, while Mac was in the shower. It looked about three-quarters full, which meant that Mac was—Vic did the calculation quickly—about ten shots in?

"Where the hell did you even get that?" Vic asked, which wasn't the most important question but it was maybe the simplest one. "The LCBO would've been closed when you got off work."

"Got it from work," Mac said. "Lifted it from behind the bar."

"Lifted—stole? You mean you _stole_ it?" Vic pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, willing himself not to yell. "What the _fuck_ are you doing, Mac? Stealing from work? Getting drunk on a work night? You're going to get fired."

"Uh," Mac held up a finger, "It's not a real job."

"You're undercover, so yeah, it is," Vic said. "They're going to fire your ass, and then the Director's gonna _kill_ you."

"So?" Mac said.

"So?" Vic repeated, incredulous. "The _Director_. Is going to _kill_ you."

Mac tilted his head a bit. His movements were loose, but his speech was perfectly distinct. "Okay," he said. "Why exactly do I work for the Agency?"

"I know this one," Vic said, grimacing. "You were rotting away in jail, the Director showed up one day, she offered you something vaguely resembling freedom if you sold your soul to her. Hello, we were all recruited the same way."

"Nope," Mac said.

Vic gave him a puzzled look. "No?"

"She said if I didn't work for her, she'd set me free."

"Er..." Vic wondered if Mac was mixing up his words in his drunkenness. "You mean if you _did_ work for her then she'd set you free."

Mac shook his head, emphatically. "If I didn't take her deal, she said she'd get me put out on the street. In Hong Kong. With the Tangs out for my head."

"What?" Vic leaned forward, looking at Mac more carefully now. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, my choices were work for the Agency, or—" he slid a finger across his throat.

"Nooo," Vic murmured. The Director had a ruthless streak, sure, but not to _that_ extent. "I mean, maybe she _said_ that, to scare you..."

"Either way." Mac shrugged. "Point is, where are the Tangs now?"

Vic squinted at Mac. "Meaning what? You want to quit? You want to fuck up and get fired? She could still punt your ass back to jail, you know."

Mac shrugged. "Jail might not be worse than this," he said. He made a listless grab for the vodka bottle.

Vic batted Mac's hand away, thought about it for a second, and then moved both the bottle and the gun down to the floor next to the coffee table, on the side away from Mac. "Get real, man," he said. "You've been in jail. Jail sucks. Working for the Agency, at least we get real food, comfortable beds ... anyway, I thought you were _enjoying_ this case. Don't you and Li Ann have that whole dance routine thing happening?"

"Yeah, it's great," Mac said, sounding thoroughly bitter, "Except I'm having this life and I'm making these friends and I'm not a _person_ , I'm a cover story." He leaned back, looking glum. "And I think my character was a teenage prostitute."

"Huh?" Vic said.

"Never mind. I said something dumb this afternoon and I think Li Ann's dance partner took it the wrong way."

Something about this was tickling Vic's memory in an uneasy way. There was something specific that Mac had refused to talk about ... "What did you say to him?"

"I don't know, just something about growing up too fast." Mac looked at Vic. "Why are you in my house?"

Vic ignored him for a second, thinking. It was Mac's line about being a teenage prostitute that had sparked the thought. Mac had said it off-hand, dismissively... 

There was a missing piece.

Vic knew that Mac and Li Ann had been with the Tangs for ten years. He knew that Mac's biological father had left Mac in Hong Kong. But how had Mac gotten from point A to point B?

 _How did you end up with the Tangs?_ Vic had asked Mac once, not long after Michael had tried to kill him, and Mac had refused to answer. _That's not a kid-appropriate story_ , he'd said.

"Mac..." Vic said, as gently as he could, "When you were younger, did you ever have to have sex for money?"

"What?" Mac said. "No! God, no."

He sounded like he was telling the truth. But Vic still had questions.

"Why were you drinking?" he asked. "You managed not to, last night. I know I wasn't home tonight, but you could have called Li Ann."

Mac shook his head. "I am not," he said emphatically, "fit to be around Li Ann right now. Anyway, fuck off, I _wanted_ to drink." He slid a little along the couch, towards the end of the table where the bottle was hiding, but that only brought him up against Vic.

"You said something about growing up too fast, and the drag queen took it the wrong way," Vic said. It was like questioning a suspect—he had to remember the offhand details, put them together, blindside the target with a flash of insight and a pointed question. "What would've been the right way?"

Mac laughed, though not in a funny way. "Nice try, Vic, I see what you did there. But I told you before, we don't have that kind of a relationship."

"Okay, I remember that," Vic agreed. "I also remember you saying that you _did_ have that kind of a relationship with Michael. And I don't really see how there can be things that you felt safe telling _him_ that you don't feel safe telling _me_."

"Make up your fucking mind," Mac said. "You just took the vodka _away_."

"Huh?" Vic said, because that was a bit of a non-sequitur.

"I'd tell Michael that stuff after he got me hammered," Mac said. "I am not nearly drunk enough tonight."

"Uh, I'd say you're pretty drunk," Vic said. Mac had just started absently petting Vic's hair.

"Not even close," Mac said. "I can still remember why I don't want to talk about it." He nuzzled Vic's ear.

"Jesus, Mac, stop that," Vic said, shifting away from him.

Shifting away and taking a _deep_ breath, actually, because Vic was suddenly experiencing an astoundingly inappropriate erection. 

Mac was freaking out. Vic was trying to figure out how the hell to care for him. Vic's body needed to stop doing that thing, _right now_. 

"Why?" Mac said, up on his knees on the couch now, moving in on Vic again to press his forehead against the side of Vic's neck. "You smell good."

"Gack," Vic choked out. " _Stop_ it Mac, you are _drunk_." He reflexively pulled away again, and bumped up against the arm of the couch.

Mac grinned. "Not drunk enough." And then he darted a hand down towards the floor.

Vic realized what had happened faster than he could react to it. Mac, with his personal-space-invasions and nuzzles, had backed Vic right to the end of the couch—and brought himself within reach of the vodka again.

And the gun.

Since Vic's reaction was about three beats too slow to prevent anything from happening, he was actually relieved to see Mac's hand come up with the bottle in it.

Not so relieved, though, to see the bottle immediately head for Mac's lips.

"No, you don't," Vic muttered, grabbing for it.

Mac managed to evade Vic's grabbing hands. Vic could see Mac's Adam's apple bobbing as he tipped the bottle up.

"Mac, stop it!" Vic shouted. "Jesus!" This was _so_ not safe. Mac wasn't listening to him. Or rather, he was listening only in the sense of actively ignoring him, ducking out of Vic's way again as Vic tried to grab for the bottle. Chugging 80 proof vodka. _Fuck_. Vic gave up trying to get the bottle away, and he tackled Mac instead.

That worked. Mac went down, Vic on top of him, in a tangle of flailing limbs. The bottle flew sideways and hit the edge of the coffee table and shattered.

Well, at least that was a _new_ problem.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" Mac murmured, not yet making any move to try to get out from under Vic.

Vic moved carefully up into a crouch, and surveyed the damage.

There was a substantial puddle of vodka on the floor—hey, at least Mac hadn't managed to drink the whole thing. The room reeked of alcohol, now.

The bigger problem was the broken glass, which had scattered in all directions.

"Do not fucking move," Vic said. "You are way too drunk to be moving around broken glass."

"No, I'm okay," Mac said, pushing himself to a sitting position.

Vic sighed. "You're really, really not." He did a quick scan for the closest safe place to deposit Mac, and decided he'd better get him back up on the couch. Vic planted his feet very carefully, watching for shards, and then reached down to grab Mac's wrist. "Up you go. Here, this way." He moved Mac by careful nudges, and got him safely to the couch. "Now pick your feet up, that's right. Okay, you can lie down. Now _stay_ there. I'm gonna clean this up."

Vic picked his way very, very carefully to the edge of the room, and then went back to the entryway to put his boots on. Thus armoured, he grabbed a broom and dustpan and went to make a first pass at cleaning.

The gun was still there, on the floor. Vic used the toe of his boot to push it further away, and then he bent over and started sweeping glass shards into the dustpan.

If Vic were still a normal person, he reflected, he'd probably be calling the suicide hotline right about now. To ask for advice, at least.

The rules changed when you became a shadowy government agent, and not in a good way.

Mac was lying quietly on the couch.

Vic remembered that he should probably make sure that Mac was still conscious. "Still with me, there, Mac?" he asked. The shards of glass clinked in the dustpan. Vic thought he'd gotten all of the big pieces, anyway. Now he was going to have to find a mop.

"Michael would only hug me when I was drunk," Mac said.

"What?" Vic said.

"If I was drunk, he'd let me talk about all the stuff that happened. And he'd hold me."

"Oh, fuck." Vic stood up, went over to the couch. Mac was lying with his left arm flung over his eyes, his right hand curled up on his belly. Vic took Mac's right hand in both of his. "You know what? Let's talk about that tomorrow. When you're sober. Because that's really fucked up."

"It helped, though," Mac murmured. His eyes were still covered. He sounded a little sleepy. "I don't think I would have made it without Michael."

Vic bit back his first reaction, which was _fuck Michael_. This picture just kept getting more disturbing—and gave a troubling context to Mac's dive for the vodka bottle.

"Tell you what," Vic said. "I'll hug you when you're sober. And if you're ever ready to tell me the stuff that you told Michael, you can do that sober, too. Now I've just got to clean up the rest of the glass so that you can get to bed without cutting your feet, okay?"

It wasn't until Vic was back at the storage closet, grabbing the mop, that he noticed the blood on his hand.

"Shit," he muttered, trying to see where it was coming from. He hadn't felt himself get cut.

He couldn't find a cut—and then he realized that the blood wasn't his.

" _Shit_ ," he said again, with feeling, and went back to check on Mac.

Mac hadn't moved. His right hand was still curled up on his chest, his left was still flung over his eyes.

Because Mac's t-shirt was black, Vic hadn't noticed up until now that the front of it was sopping with blood.

"Fuck," Vic said. "Mac, you're bleeding. Where are you hurt?"

"Huh?" Mac said. "I'm fine."

Vic clenched his jaw. "That is clearly false." He picked up Mac's right hand and turned it over. There was the cut—and Vic found himself taking a shaky breath of relief to see that it was just a slice in the heel of Mac's hand. He must have cut it when he was pushing himself into a sitting position on the floor.

Vic realized he'd been half-expecting the cut to be on Mac's wrist.

"I'm gonna have to take you to the bathroom and fix this," Vic said. "The glass might still be in it. I'll need a good light, and tweezers."

He stopped. His brief fear about the nature of the cut had been unfounded, but there was still a really important unanswered question. "Mac, I'm not going to ask you to spill your guts to me while you're drunk. If that was Michael's M.O., you've really gotta know that's not healthy. But I do need to know one thing. Why did you have the gun out?"

"What?" Mac said. "Oh. I pointed it at you. Sorry. I wasn't going to eat it. I was just wearing it from work, and then you came in the door with no warning."

Vic felt himself relax a bit. Just a bit, though. Mac had demonstrated plenty of self-destructive behaviour tonight, even without the gun.

Anyway, Vic still needed to deal with that cut. He considered the state of the floor, and Mac's sock feet. "Put your left arm over my shoulder," he said. "I'm gonna carry you."

Mac was a big, awkward, gangly load, but it was only a short trip to the bathroom and Vic was strong. In the bathroom, he got Mac seated on the closed lid of the toilet, and got him to lay his hand palm-up on the edge of the sink.

"Eugh," Mac said, looking away from the cut.

"Oh yeah, I forgot that you can't stand the sight of blood," Vic ribbed him lightly, dabbing at the cut with a rubbing-alcohol-soaked cotton swab. "Pretty lame for a bad-ass Triad gangster."

"Just deal with it," Mac said tightly, looking increasingly pale.

Vic inspected the cut carefully, and determined that the glass shard wasn't stuck in it after all. He got a box of butterfly strips out of Mac's medicine cabinet—he was well-stocked for minor first aid, at least—and used a couple of them to hold the edges of the cut together.

Just as he was pressing the second one into place, he felt Mac slump sideways.

"Oh, shit," Vic yelped, managing to grab him before he fell over.

Okay. Mac was completely limp in Vic's arms. His head was lolling sideways, loosely.

Vic decided he'd better lie him down on the floor. He did so, being careful not to knock his head. Then he felt for Mac's pulse at his neck. It seemed okay.

Vic sat back on his heels and wondered if he should be calling an ambulance.

Mac's eyes fluttered open just a few seconds later. "Fuck," he said. "What happened?"

"Um, you drank somewhere between a quarter and a half of a bottle of vodka," Vic said.

Mac groaned. "No, I remember. The blood. Vic, I'm gonna throw up."

Oh, fun, this again.

Vic managed to help Mac into a sitting position in time to keep everything tidy, at least. When Mac was done puking, he sagged back against Vic, shivering.

"We're going to be in here for a while, aren't we?" Vic said with a sigh.

"Sorry," Mac murmured weakly. "I really fucked up."

"Yes, you really did," Vic agreed. "You can't keep doing this, Mac. I'm serious."

"You don't have to stay," Mac said. "I can deal with this."

"Oh, hell no," Vic said.

He remembered his resolution to watch out for Mac's tendency to self-sacrifice. Did this count?

"I didn't expect you to come over," Mac said.

"Well, I did. And I think I'm gonna tomorrow, too. And the next day." Because Mac was clearly not in a good place right now. Exactly how much of that fucking bottle had he been planning to drink tonight, alone?

At that point Mac had to lean over to throw up again. When he finished, he was shivering harder.

Vic decided that he'd better get some supplies.

He went and got a blanket, and a bottle of Gatorade. Then, since the front of Mac's t-shirt was covered in rapidly coagulating blood, Vic eased the shirt off over Mac's head. Mac raised his arms cooperatively. Once the shirt was free, Vic balled it up and tossed it into a corner.

And turned back to Mac, who was now naked from the waist up.

Mac had a very nice body. Obviously. The muscles in his arms, and his abs, were well-defined, lean and strong. The little dip at his hips right where they disappeared under the waistband of his slacks...

Oh, fuck. No, Vic was _not_ getting aroused looking at Mac right now. Nope, nope, nope. That was so inappropriate, it just obviously wasn't happening.

Vic quickly wrapped the blanket around Mac's shoulders. "Okay, now lean against the wall there," he said. "Knees up. Right, now stick out your hand, I need to finish with it."

Mac rested his right hand on his knees, and squeezed his eyes shut. Not wanting a repeat of the fainting spell while he was doing first aid, Vic let Mac get away with the closed eyes for now.

Mac really was ridiculously squeamish, considering his profession.

Vic smeared some antibiotic cream over the cut, and then wrapped a gauze bandage around Mac's hand to cover it. He wound the bandage both over and under Mac's thumb, so that it would stay in place.

While he was at it, Vic also _removed_ the slightly ragged bandages from yesterday, the ones that had been wrapped around Mac's knuckles. Underneath, all the scrapes had scabbed up nicely. The bruises were a mess of purple, green and brown.

"All done," Vic said. "No more gore. You can open your eyes."

Mac did so. "Thanks," he said, sort of weakly. And then, "But, why are you here?"

Ah, right. Mac kept asking that, and Vic kept evading the question. How to explain? Vic was very glad that he _had_ come over, considering the state he'd found Mac in, but his reasons for coming over in the first place were sketchy at best. "Well, you gave me your keys," he said.

"I gave Li Ann my keys, too," Mac pointed out. "She calls first."

"Well, Li Ann has boundaries," Vic said, without reflecting too hard on what he'd just implied about himself.

Mac's lips twitched. "She sure does," he said.

Vic twisted the top of the bottle of Gatorade, breaking the seal. "Now you need to drink some of this," he said.

Mac took the bottle with his left hand.

"Little sips," Vic reminded him. He sat back and watched Mac follow the instruction.

Okay, Vic really needed to think about what he was doing here.

So. In the most immediate sense: crisis management. He needed to get Mac through the rest of the night without letting him fuck himself up any more. He needed to keep Mac warm, and hydrated, and make sure he stayed conscious until it was clear he wasn't throwing up anymore.

In a slightly broader sense: Vic really needed to figure out what was going on with Mac. He was spinning out. Why?

Well, maybe this one wasn't a hard puzzle. Michael had come back, and fucked with Mac's head, and nearly killed him. When Mac had been explaining his drinking _two_ nights ago, he'd mentioned that it was his first night alone since Michael had died. That was true, Vic realized—for the first week after Michael's death, all three of them had been together at Li Ann's place dealing with Mac's concussion, and then after that Mac had slept with a different guy every night until the case started and the Director expressed her displeasure with Mac's social exploits.

Or no, wait—actually Mac _had_ been alone one other night. Christmas Eve. And he'd gotten drunk then, too, Vic remembered—he'd shown up at Vic's place on Christmas morning half hung-over, half still-drunk. Shit.

Okay, question number three: what was _Vic's_ involvement in all this?

His relationship with Mac had definitely changed since the explosion at the soy mill. Spending that week together at Li Ann's apartment, sharing the futon—it had forced them into a new, literal closeness that Vic would never even have imagined as a possibility, otherwise.

Also, he'd found out that Mac was attracted to men. Including, apparently, Vic.

That didn't explain why _Vic_ was suddenly finding himself getting a hard-on for _Mac_ at awkward moments, though. Vic was mature and worldly enough to know that gayness wasn't contagious.

Vic's feelings for Mac were currently ... complicated.

Mac had been a force for chaos in Vic's life ever since their paths had collided in Li Ann's apartment, a little over a year ago. And Vic had thought he _hated_ Mac at first. Mac got under his skin in a way nobody else ever had.

Working with Mac had been a real shock to Vic's system. Mac was impulsive and reckless in ways that alternately irritated Vic and scared him. At first, Vic had attributed this tendency to Mac's immaturity and thoughtlessness. As he got to know Mac better, and watched him succeed in his wild-card moves about 90% of the time and at least _survive_ the other 10%, he started to understand that to a certain extent, Mac acted that way because he'd discovered that he _could_ ; it worked for him.

Mac's refusal to ever be serious had been an irritant to Vic, too, at first; but over the past year Vic had gotten used to it, and maybe even started to depend on it.

Vic knew very well why Mac had been sent undercover with Li Ann this time rather than with Vic—Mac wouldn't have lasted a solid minute with the Dog Pack guys before he would've convinced them to beat the shit out of him—but Vic had sure missed Mac this evening. Vic had made a private little game of imagining Mac's flip, sardonic responses to all of the crap that 3-Jay said. It had helped Vic to stop himself from visibly wincing at some key moments, which would have been very bad for his cover.

So, okay, Vic _liked_ Mac.

But how had he started to care about him so _intensely_ , how had it come to the point where Mac's suffering made Vic's own heart hurt?

Vic kept thinking back to that moment when he'd sprinted into the soy mill, knowing only that Mac and Michael were missing, that Michael couldn't be trusted, and that Pucci liked to set bombs.

Finding Mac collapsed under the light fixture. Mac's attempt to warn Vic about the bomb; Mac telling Vic to leave him behind.

The massive explosion, bare seconds after they made it out.

Brushes with death came pretty often in this job, but that one had been on a whole other level of intensity. That was the kind of experience that changed things forever.

It had definitely changed the way Vic felt about Mac.

Vic realized then that everything had been pretty quiet for a while. Mac had taken a few sips of Gatorade, then leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes. Vic didn't think he'd fallen asleep, though; he hadn't dropped the bottle.

"How are you doing?" Vic asked.

"Been better," Mac said, without opening his eyes. "Shit. I've got to be downtown at 11:30 tomorrow morning."

"I thought your shift started at two?"

"It does," Mac agreed. "But I'm supposed to meet Ben earlier to shop for my costume."

"Ben?" Vic repeated.

"Jasmine. Li Ann's drag queen."

"Ah, okay." Vic checked his watch. It was nearly two in the morning. "I'll try to make sure you get there on time," he promised. "Do you think you're okay to go bed now?"

Mac shook his head slightly. "Nope," he said. "I'm definitely going to be sick again."

"Oh," Vic said. "Now?"

"No," Mac said. "Uh, yes."

* * *

After he threw up, Mac was shivering pretty hard. Vic tucked the blanket around him again, and then sat next to him and tucked an arm around his shoulders. Mac immediately sank right into Vic, tucking his head against Vic's shoulder.

"Okay," Vic said, "You can lean on me. But you're not allowed to go to sleep until you've gone twenty minutes without puking."

"Got it," Mac mumbled against Vic's neck.

Vic shifted, put his other arm around Mac too.

Okay, he was holding Mac. And Mac seemed to be shaking less, with Vic holding him, so that was good.

"Drink some Gatorade," Vic reminded him.

Mac moaned softly, but complied with a little sip.

And Vic forced himself to confront another aspect of their reality, here: Mac was a mess.

Right now in this moment, he was sick with deliberately self-inflicted alcohol poisoning. So that was all kinds of not good. But the bigger problem was where the drinking was _coming_ from—and that was a deep dark pool of muck that Vic had barely dipped his toes in.

Michael Tang was definitely a part of it, but Vic's conclusion two nights ago that Michael was the _cause_ of it seemed to have been premature.

What Mac had said tonight, about how Michael would get Mac drunk and let him talk about—what? 'All the stuff that happened,' Mac had said.

What stuff?

What the hell had happened to Mac that he'd turned to _Michael_ for help in coping?

Whatever it was, Vic felt an urgent need to somehow interpose himself between Mac and it. Which wasn't even remotely possible, because obviously whatever it was had to have happened years and years ago. But still.

And the force of Vic's need to protect Mac, to find a way to make things better for him—that was something else that Vic needed to subject to a bit of honest self-reflection.

All in all, Vic was happier when he had somebody to care for. Vic didn't know why he was wired that way, but he was. He'd been appalled one day to find out that the Director actually had that in her _file_ on him—she called it his 'wounded bird syndrome.'

So, okay, right now Mac was pretty clearly a wounded bird. And here was Vic on the bathroom floor with his arms around him. How many of Vic's confused feelings about Mac right now were coming from Vic's overactive protectiveness?

It had never happened with a man, before. But apart from the gender ... pre-Li Ann, you could say that Vic had had a type, and Mac fit right in.

Vic would have to be careful about this, he resolved. He would try to protect Mac from this immediate crisis, for sure—if Vic didn't, who would?—but Vic would need to make sure that he didn't start accidentally giving Mac hints that he was falling in love with him, or something crazy like that. Mac _did_ have a crush on Vic—Vic knew because Li Ann had flat-out told him, and Mac himself had basically confirmed it two nights ago—and the last thing Mac needed right now was Vic messing with his head. 

So Vic just hugged Mac tighter, and reminded him to keep drinking Gatorade.


	10. Chapter 10

Mac was regretting having agreed to lunch.

He'd made it through the pants fitting okay. All he'd really had to do was stand there while the leather-worker measured him and joked with Benjamin about how tall and well-muscled Mac was.

But lunch was gonna be an ordeal. Mac's head was pounding, and he'd thrown up twice in the morning before he'd left the apartment.

At least they didn't have a dance practice scheduled for today.

Mac knew that he was fucking up right now in an unsustainable way. Last night when he'd stolen the bottle at the club he hadn't really been thinking about the long-term implications—it had just been a quick impulse, a sharp little thrill. Then when he'd opened it up he'd told himself that he'd have two, maybe three shots—only hadn't he already known that he was lying to himself about that? When he'd hit three shots there'd been no reason to stop, and so many reasons to keep going.

If Vic hadn't shown up...

But Vic _had_ shown up. Popped up out of nowhere and rescued Mac, the way he always did. Mac knew he didn't deserve it, but he did appreciate it.

Vic wasn't going to keep rescuing him forever, though. At the rate Mac was going, Vic was definitely going to get sick of his shit pretty soon.

And never mind Vic—did Mac really want to test how many 'final warnings' the Director was willing to give him? Even if, deep down, Mac suspected that she kind of liked him. It was the only possible explanation for how he'd survived so far.

Survived ... if he was going to survive going this round with his demons, he really needed to shape up.

The way Vic had been fussing about the gun last night, he'd obviously been worried that Mac might be suicidal. And Vic had been totally wrong about the gun. It was a deeply-held and ironic secret that Mac was _terrified_ of getting shot. He always had been, since he was a kid. That's why it was so important to make sure you always shot the other guys first.

But on the other hand, hadn't Mac been just a little bit interested in seeing what would happen if he managed to drink the whole bottle of vodka fast enough?

Fuck, that thought seemed a whole lot stupider in the cold light of day, walking along Church Street with a short, gay, cheerful, well-dressed lawyer at his side.

"And _that_ was the end of the bathhouse raids," Ben was saying. "Ah, and here we are."

The restaurant was a classy-looking place; its widely-spaced tables were set for lunch with real linen tablecloths and full place-settings.

Mac decided that his character, Mac-the-intermittently-employed-security-guard, would be impressed and a little intimidated by this place. He made sure to crane his neck around before he sat down, and to give the salad fork a bit of a suspicious poke.

Regretfully, he decided that he really did have to take his sunglasses off in here. He'd kept them on in the Leather Daddies shop, but that had been a _very_ different atmosphere. He put them down on the table and reached for a menu.

"How come there aren't any prices?" he asked, when he'd opened it up.

"There are," Ben said, with a tolerant smile. "Those numbers after the menu items."

Mac knew that, but he thought that Mac-the-security-guard had probably never seen a menu where the dollar sign and the decimal places were omitted. "Fifteen dollars for a _salad_?" he squeaked in feigned shock.

"Don't worry," Ben said, "I'm paying."

Mac really wasn't hungry. He folded the menu. "Yeah, I'll just have a small vegetable soup."

"You can have anything that you want," Ben insisted. "Really, don't worry about the prices, I can afford it."

Mac believed _that_ ; Ben was wearing a thousand-dollar suit, and it was the third one Mac had seen him in. "No, I'm just not very hungry," Mac said. "I'm feeling a little under the weather."

Ben gave him a penetrating glance. Mac was pretty sure he was taking in the bloodshot eyes and the slightly shaky hands. "Ah," Ben said. "I think I know that one." He refrained from further comment.

The waiter came to take their orders. Mac ordered his soup, and Ben asked for the Gnocchi Parisienne. When the waiter asked if they'd like to see the wine list, Ben's eyes flicked over Mac as he demurred, saying that he had to meet clients in the afternoon.

Feeling a little awkward, Mac reached for his water glass with his right hand.

Ben's gaze flicked over _that_ , too. Mac's hand had seen better days, what with the bruised knuckles and the new bandage around the heel of his hand. Ben hadn't asked about it yet.

He did now, though. "Trouble at the club?" he asked, nodding towards Mac's hand.

Mac took a careful sip of his water, and shook his head. "Extracurricular trouble," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"I'll try not to," Ben said, giving Mac a bit of a searching look. He sat back. "So, Mac, tell me about yourself."

"Um, what?" Mac said. That was a wide-open question, and a bit awkward under the circumstances.

"Well, you just sort of popped up out of nowhere, but you don't seem entirely new to the scene."

"Oh," Mac said. "Well, I'm not from here."

Ben nodded. "I'd picked up on that. Where are you from?"

Mac thought about that one for a second. Normally he loved spinning stories when he was undercover, really letting his creativity fly—but usually those were one-time interactions. This time he needed to keep his cover intact for at least another week, continuing to interact with the same people. He'd better stick with something closer to the truth, to keep it consistent and supportable. "I grew up all over the place," he said. "South-East Asia, mostly."

Ben's eyebrows lifted. "That's interesting," he said. "Diplomat's kid? Army brat?"

And for some reason, despite the fact that Ben had just tossed him two perfectly good lines, Mac heard himself saying, "No, my mother was an international drug trafficker."

Ben blinked, sat back. "Are you shitting me?"

Mac shook his head. "I wish." He had the napkin in his hands, and he was balling it up. But actually he wasn't nearly as shaky as he thought he should be, considering that there was no person currently alive who knew this about him.

Well, it wasn't a story about Mac Ramsey. It was a story about Mac-the-security-guard.

"What was that like?" Ben asked. "If you don't mind talking about it."

Actually there was a weird freedom in talking about Mac-the-security-guard's life. It was only a cover story, after all. "We never stayed in one place for long," Mac said. "Longest was ... maybe a year in Manila? I went to school there. I think I can still say the Lord's Prayer in Tagalog."

"That sounds lonely," Ben said.

"I had my mom," Mac said. "She was a lot of fun, when she had time for me. And I made friends pretty easily wherever we went. I just didn't get to keep them."

Ben's gnocchi arrived, and Mac's vegetable soup. Mac took a careful sip, and decided that his stomach could tolerate it. It was in fact a delicious soup, delicately spiced and swimming with fresh tomatoes and corn and crisp little curls of onion.

"When did you find out about your mother's ... profession?" Ben asked.

"Oh, she never hid it from me. And she never hid me from it, either." Mac took a delicate bite of tomato and chewed carefully. "I grew up around a lot of scary people."

"I can't imagine," Ben murmured.

"Well, I ran away when I was thirteen." That was an elision of several months and major events and players, but there was only so much that Mac could pile into Mac-the-security-guard's story. "I lived on the street for a while, in Hong Kong. Later Li Ann and I were fostered together."

"Oh," Ben said. "That's why you said she was your sister."

"Yeah," Mac said.

"You two seem very close," Ben said. "I guess now I can understand why."

Mac nodded, and took another sip of soup. He thought that maybe he should stop talking now.

"I'm sorry," Ben said, after a moment of silence. "Do you want to change the subject? I didn't expect—" he waved his hand vaguely "—all that. I mean, I'd suspected there was something about a rough adolescence, you said something yesterday—but I've met a lot of guys who got kicked out by their parents after they came out, or got found out. I assumed it was something like that."

"Oh," Mac said. "No. Actually I never came out. Not until—oh, about three weeks ago."

"Really?" Ben's eyebrows went up again. "Now, that surprises me. You seem very self-assured, very comfortable with your sexuality—much more so than I'd expect from somebody who'd been closeted until practically yesterday."

"Well, I wasn't _that_ closeted," Mac admitted. "Li Ann knew. And I had a boyfriend for years, in secret."

"Ah, I see," Benjamin said.

"When did you come out?" Mac asked. He was curious, but also he thought it might be safer to change the subject _away_ from his own life. He was gonna have to do a lot of explaining to Li Ann later, to keep their stories straight, _shit_.

"Oh, I was thirty-five. And coming out also meant getting divorced, so that was a whole shitstorm." Ben swirled his water glass, giving it a look like he wished he'd ordered the wine after all. "I'm still paying alimony through the nose. Which I absolutely _should_ be, by the way—she supported me through law school."

"Ah," Mac said.

"So you mentioned the boyfriend in the past tense," Ben said. Ben apparently wasn't too eager to dwell on his own past, either.

Mac drummed his fingers on the table, letting that one slide over him. " _Very_ past tense," he said, without letting himself think about it too hard.

"Are you seeing anyone now?"

"Well, after I came out I slept with ten different guys in ten days," Mac admitted with a sheepish smirk.

"Hah!" Ben laughed. "Oy vey, I think I did the same thing, ten years ago." Then he gave Mac a sharp look. "Not to sound like a nagging Jewish mother, but you are being careful, right? Using a condom every time?"

"Yes," Mac said. Michael never had, but Mac had always used one with everyone else, including Li Ann.

"Good," Ben said. "So, ten men in ten days. I envy the energy of youth. But nobody serious?"

"Well," Mac said, "Maybe."

"Oh?" Ben's eyes lit up. "Do tell."

"Um. I don't really know what's happening. There's this guy..." Was Mac really going to talk about this? With Ben?

Well, Ben was never going to meet Vic.

"That's a good start," Ben prompted him.

"I've liked him for a while. He's really ... different from what I'm used to. He's brave, and honest, and caring..." Okay there was no way Vic could ever find out Mac was talking about him like this. "Also really fucking hot."

" _You_ are really fucking hot, my dear," Ben said. "So this guy sounds perfect."

"Except he's straight."

Ben sat back, with a sympathetically rueful smile. "Ah, there it is."

"Except..."

"Except?" Ben repeated, leaning forward again.

"We've been sleeping together."

Ben made a choking noise. "That doesn't sound very straight," he said, once he could talk again.

"No, I mean _sleeping_. Not sex. We're cuddling but he doesn't want to kiss."

"Okay," Ben said slowly. "Has this been going on for long?"

"Three weeks," Mac said.

"Ah," Ben said, obviously making the connection with the coming-out timeline. "Well, it sounds to me as though he _might_ be having feelings for you that he's not ready to admit to yet. Actual straight men don't usually cuddle their gay platonic friends to sleep. But then again, it's a big world out there, so who knows."

"I mean, there are reasons he's been sleeping with me," Mac admitted. "There have been circumstances."

"What kind of circumstances?"

Mac wondered how he could tell this story and still maintain his cover. Maybe it would be better to just say he'd rather not talk about it?

But Mac had very few options for relationship advice, and Ben was here and ready to listen.

"Well, I've been going through a rough time," Mac said. "My ex was in town, and there was a ... confrontation. Um. I ended up with a concussion."

"Oh, shit," Ben said. "I am really sorry to hear that. Are you okay now?"

"Yeah. So Li Ann and Vic—I mean, this guy—stayed with me while I had the concussion. And there were only two beds in the apartment, so Vic slept with me. I mean, the guy." _Shit._ Mac really didn't know when to stop talking.

"So _the guy_ —who may or may not be named Vic, but we'll leave that aside for the moment—was only sleeping with you because there weren't enough beds?" Ben said.

"Right. So it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Except."

"Except?" Ben repeated.

"He's been sleeping with me at my place for the past few nights."

"Okay," Ben said, sounding a bit confused—which was only natural, Mac supposed. "Did you talk about why?"

"Well, I guess I've sort of been having trouble dealing with stuff that ... seeing my ex brought up. And I've been, um, drinking too much sometimes."

"Your ex, who gave you a concussion," Ben reiterated. "Mac, are you in trouble?" He indicated Mac's battered hands. "Has your ex been back again?"

"Uh, no." Mac let out a shaky laugh. "No, he's dead."

"Dead?" Ben repeated, looking shocked.

Shit, Mac kept forgetting that normal people didn't have lives like this.

"Well, he crashed his car," Mac clarified. "After he hurt me." No need to mention that Li Ann had been shooting at him at the time.

"Oh my God," Ben said. "Mac, I'm so sorry."

"So anyway, I guess the guy has just been coming over to my place because he thinks I need him to look after me. Well, Li Ann sent him the first night. I called him the second night. He came on his own the third night."

Ben looked thoughtful. "It sounds to me like Vic—sorry, I mean _this guy_ —cares about you a lot. And it sounds like you need that right now. So if I were you I wouldn't worry too much about whether he's straight, or whether he's attracted to you. Just accept the friendship, and let that carry you through. The rest will make itself clear in time."

"Okay," Mac said. That made sense, actually. "Thanks."

Ben quirked a smile at him. "Any time, darling. I hope it helps."


	11. Chapter 11

Thursday night, Vic and Li Ann gathered at Mac's place after Mac's shift at the club. This had been Vic's suggestion, and he'd told Li Ann that she didn't need to come if she'd rather call it an early night, but Li Ann had wanted to join them.

Vic got the feeling that even though she didn't actually know about Mac's recent very rough nights, she had some suspicions.

She had shown up with a takeout container of black bean spare ribs, so now they were all sitting around Mac's table, eating them with their fingers.

"How's your undercover coming along?" Li Ann asked Vic.

"Great," Vic said, "in the sense that it's working. I'm 3-Jay's new best friend."

Mac raised an eyebrow. "Did he have an _old_ best friend?"

"Well," Vic thought about it, quickly ran the faces and the names through his head, "That would've been Terrance. A.k.a. T-Rex."

"Hey, are you gonna get a nickname?" Mac asked. "How about V-Boy?"

Li Ann gave the back of Mac's head a playful slap, and otherwise ignored him, turning to Vic to ask "Do you think Terrance is going to be a problem for you?"

"Nah," Vic said. "He's a marshmallow."

"So how did you edge out the marshmallow dinosaur?" Mac asked.

Vic rolled his shoulders a bit. "3-Jay took me out to a firing range today. I didn't hold back with the handgun—went ten bulls-eyes in a row. I pretended I'd never held a semi-automatic before, though. I let him show me, acted all impressed."

"Does 3-Jay have a gun permit?" Li Ann asked.

"Yeah," Vic said. "And he told me he's got a gun in the shop. Didn't mention where, though. He really perked up when I told him I was licensed, too."

"Has he said anything yet about Ebony Stalking, or the fundraiser?" Mac asked.

Vic shook his head. "I mean, I'm not _in_ the Dog Pack yet. I'm in _with_ them, I'm hanging out, socially—but there's stuff they're clearly keeping from me. I think today was a turning point, though. 3-Jay said he's got something special planned for me tomorrow."

"Be careful, Vic," Li Ann said, looking concerned.

"I know," Vic said. "I always am."

* * *

When they'd finished eating, there were dishes to do.

"They're Li Ann's responsibility," Mac said. "She's the one who insisted that we use actual plates."

"Ha, nice try," Li Ann said. "I _brought_ the food. Somebody else has to do the dishes."

Vic rolled his eyes. "It's literally _three plates_ , you guys." He sighed. "I'll wash. Mac, you dry."

Li Ann settled on the couch with a book she'd pulled off Mac's shelf, and Mac obediently followed Vic and the plates out to the kitchen. Digging under Mac's sink, Vic found a dusty bottle of dish soap. "You're really not very domestic, are you?" he said, running the water.

"Hey, takeout comes in disposable containers for a reason," Mac said.

Before he plunged his hands into the soapy water, Vic absently rolled up his shirt cuffs. At which point he remembered about the fucking tattoos.

He seriously considered tugging his sleeves right back down and just letting his shirt get wet, but Mac had already seen the ink—in fact, he was clearly watching Vic flinching right now.

"Well, you said that Murphy gave you some racist tattoos," Mac said. He reached over and touched the inside of Vic's left wrist—brushed his thumb across the black-and-white image. "What is it, anyway?"

Vic shuddered involuntarily at the feather-light touch; to his embarrassed horror, he felt his cock hardening. "Jesus, Mac," he snapped, pushing Mac's hand away, "Do you have _no_ concept of personal space?"

Mac backed off with a quick flinch of surprised hurt—but he pasted a smile over it almost immediately. "Not really," he said. "You know that."

Vic knew he'd overreacted—particularly considering all of the night-time cuddling they'd been doing lately. It was totally understandable if Mac had concluded that he was allowed inside Vic's personal space.

Feeling a bit obscurely guilty, Vic cleared his throat and as a peace-offering turned his wrist to give Mac a better look at the tattoo in question. "Do you seriously not recognize the Confederate Flag?"

"The what?" Mac said. "What country is it?"

Vic gave Mac a hard look for a moment, trying to figure out if he was having Vic on—but Mac's lips weren't twitching, he looked serious. Vic shook his head and grabbed the first plate for washing. "Not a country. It's the flag the South flew in the American Civil War." He rinsed the plate and handed it to Mac. "You do know about the Civil War, right?"

"Sure." Mac dried the plate and put it on the counter. "When they got their independence from Britain."

Vic found himself face-palming, which was a very soapy and wet experience. "That was the _Revolutionary_ War. Do you seriously know _nothing_ about history?"

"Hey, I didn't grow up here," Mac said. "What can you tell me about the Boxer Rebellion?"

Vic blinked. "The what?"

Mac nodded. "Exactly."

Vic tilted his head. "Where _did_ you grow up? I mean, obviously Hong Kong, eventually, but—I met your biological father; I always assumed you were from Canada originally, or the States."

"Well, ha, that's a funny story actually," Mac said, looking suddenly ill at ease. "I sort of need to talk to Li Ann about that. Like, now."

"Talk to me about what?" Li Ann called out from the living room.

"Our cover story," Mac called back. "I fleshed out some details for Ben at lunch today. I need to fill you in."

Vic quickly finished with the two remaining plates, drained the water, and then followed Mac back out to the living room. Li Ann had been curled up at one end of the couch with the book; Mac took the middle, so Vic settled on his other side.

"So what did you tell Benjamin?" Li Ann asked.

"Well, I sort of mentioned Michael," Mac said. At Li Ann's shocked look, he quickly added, "Not by name. I said that my ex had been in town. And that he'd given me a concussion and then died in a car crash."

Vic blinked. "That's a lot of sharing. You didn't consider maybe changing the subject instead?"

Mac gave an uncomfortable shrug. "We were talking, there was a flow. I wanted to seem like a real person, you know?"

Li Ann frowned. "You are a real person."

"Not when I'm talking to Ben," Mac said, glumly. "Anyway, you need to know, I also told him that we were fostered together, in Hong Kong, when we were teenagers."

Li Ann stiffened. "Tell me you didn't mention the Tangs."

"No, no," Mac said. "I was vague. He's gonna assume it was some kind of normal foster family."

"Okay," Li Ann said, looking wary. "Did you tell him anything else?"

"Well." Mac let out a sharp laugh. "I told him a story about spending my childhood getting dragged all over South-East Asia by my international-drug-trafficking mother."

Vic shook his head, perplexed. "What the hell kind of a cover identity are you trying to build, there, Mac? You were just supposed to be an ordinary underemployed security guard."

Mac gave a weak chuckle. "Well, you know how sometimes my creativity runs away with me."

On Mac's other side though, Li Ann was leaning forward and putting a hand on Mac's arm. Her expression was serious. "Mac, were you telling him the truth?"

A tight stillness came over Mac. He didn't answer for a moment, and then he said, "Yeah. Well. Some of it."

Vic's sense of their whole conversation shifted abruptly. Mac had consistently, specifically refused to talk about any part of his life from before the Tangs. Were they having a breakthrough here? And ... _Jesus_. "Your mother really was a drug dealer?"

Mac gave a quick, wry smile, but his focus was on his knees, one of which had started making quick little staccato bounces. "Drug _trafficker_. She made large-scale deals, set up the arrangements to move product across borders."

Mac really, _really_ hadn't wanted to talk about his past, and now he was. Vic tried to guess if he should push this further, ask some questions, or just let Mac say what he wanted to say and leave it at that.

But on Mac's other side, Li Ann was putting her hand over his. "You never mentioned this before," she said.

"Yeah." Mac's shoulders were hunched in, and his knee was still bouncing. "It seemed better not to look back."

"Mac," Vic said, carefully, "Do you want to talk about it now?"

Mac gave a sharp little nod. "Yeah," he said. "I think so." Then he turned to Li Ann. "You don't have to stay, if you don't want to."

Li Ann seemed to consider that carefully. "I think I'd rather stay," she said finally, sounding maybe a little surprised with herself.

Mac looked concerned, and he said something in Cantonese. Li Ann responded in kind, and they had a brief conversation.

Vic sat back, feeling his usual frustration at being left out, but he figured that he had to give them this one.

Finally Li Ann was the one who turned to Vic and said, in English, "Mac is concerned that hearing about his experiences will upset me. Could I talk to you in the other room for a moment?"

Mac sat up, startled. "Hey, what?"

Li Ann shrugged. "I need some words in private with Vic, and we don't have a secret language of our own." And then, sort of proving the point, she said something else in Cantonese. Mac, looking worried, said something in reply; Li Ann said something final in a reassuring-sounding tone, and then took Vic's hand and led him into Mac's bedroom.

They sat down on Mac's bed.

"What's going on?" Vic asked.

"Actually, that's what I wanted to ask you," Li Ann said. "Mac told me just now that there were some things that he had only ever told Michael, and that after last night he'd realized that he might need to talk about them with you if he was going to survive. Vic, what happened last night?"

"Um," Vic said, thinking quickly. Was it okay to tell Li Ann the truth? She'd straight-up brought him to another room instead of asking him in front of Mac, which made it pretty clear that they were talking behind Mac's back.

Well, but Vic hadn't promised Mac that he wouldn't tell Li Ann. In fact he had specifically _refused_ to make that promise when Mac had asked him to, because Vic had thought that Li Ann might need to know. And she probably did. So: "I came over without calling first, and I found him working his way through a forty of vodka."

"Oh." Li Ann's eyes went wide. "Was he—I mean, he's okay, though, right?"

"Not really. He spent two hours in the bathroom last night throwing up. And that was—I mean, I _interrupted_ him when I got here. I don't know how much more he would've drunk if I hadn't." Vic paused, remembering. "And that was the second time in three days."

"Oh," Li Ann said again, faintly. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was that bad."

"He didn't want you to know," Vic said.

She nodded. "He was protecting me." Another deep breath. "He thinks that if we start talking about the past, I'll crumble."

"Ah," Vic said. "He, um, did sort of give me that impression, too."

Li Ann looked at him sideways. "Did he say why?"

Vic shook his head.

"He's projecting, I think," Li Ann said. " _He_ hides things. I just prefer not to talk about them."

"Um," Vic said, "I'm not sure I see the difference."

"I don't like to dwell on where I came from," Li Ann said. "It's an unpleasant story. But if you'd ever asked, I would have told you."

Vic considered that for a moment. Why _had_ he never asked? They'd been _engaged_ , for fuck's sake. Was Vic just an asshole?

No. He was pretty sure that one way or another, Li Ann had always led him away from talking about the past; but subtly, so that he hadn't realized it was happening.

"Do you want to tell me now?" Vic asked, cautiously.

"I think I'd better," Li Ann said. "I just told Mac that I was going to. Otherwise we're going to be talking in circles around it. I don't want to give it that kind of power." She sighed. "Vic, my parents sold me to a brothel when I was twelve years old."

Vic blinked. "Oh."

She was sitting up straight, but her posture wasn't overly stiff. Vic wondered if he should be hugging her—but she looked perfectly composed.

 _Jesus_.

"Mac knew?" Vic said, finally.

"Not while we were growing up. I told him just before we ran away from the Tangs."

"Do you, um, want to talk about it?" Vic said.

She shook her head. "Not really. Anyway, I don't think we should be leaving Mac alone for so long, he's probably freaking out."

"Yeah, good point," Vic said.

When they got back to the living room, Mac was perched on the edge of the couch, his fingers drumming anxiously on his knees. "Oh hey, you're back," he said, as though they'd gone out to coffee or something.

Li Ann went right back to the couch and sat down beside Mac. She mirrored his posture, although not as tightly—leaning forward a little, feet together on the floor, hands on her knees. "I told Vic," she said. "Now it's your turn."

"Hah," Mac said, in a strangled sort of way. His knee started bouncing again. "I really need a drink."

"No you don't," Vic said, sitting down on Mac's other side and putting his hand on the bouncing knee. "Anyway, there's nothing in the house."

"I know," Mac confessed, "I checked while you were in the bedroom."

Vic silently congratulated himself for having poured the extra vodka down the sink. Well, that and breaking the other bottle, which had been less of a win. Anyway, Vic had eventually managed to get the floor mopped at 3 a.m., so their feet were safe tonight. "You can't keep doing that," Vic said. "I mean you _really_ can't."

"I know," Mac said.

"So what was it that you needed to tell us?" Vic asked, squeezing Mac's hand.

"Um, I don't know. Fuck. Michael used to—he'd bring me liquor, and then he'd let me talk, and then we'd fuck. I mean, those weren't the only times we'd fuck, but they were the only times he'd hold me afterwards." Mac's knee had stopped bouncing, but instead his whole body was rocking in quick little trembling motions.

Li Ann was watching him with concern, but not reaching out.

Vic made a quick decision; he swapped hands, so his left instead of his right was resting over Mac's, and then he wrapped his right arm around Mac's shoulders and hugged him tight.

"Okay," Vic said, "Well, we're gonna do it differently. You're gonna be sober, and I'm gonna hold you—" he'd almost said 'we', but he couldn't speak for Li Ann, and right now she was enforcing a careful ten inch radius of personal space, "—and you can talk about whatever you need to, and nobody's going to fuck you."

Mac let out a sharp laugh. "Unfortunately."

Li Ann's eyebrow twitched.

Vic did not rise to that bait. "What did you talk to Michael about?"

Mac shook his head. "All kinds of things. My life really sucked, actually, before the Tangs." He sort of laughed again, but it had a bit of a hysterical edge. "I lived on the street in Hong Kong for something like four months. Michael rescued me from that."

"Shit," Vic said.

"It wasn't Father?" Li Ann asked, sounding casually curious. It was the first thing she'd said.

"Michael talked him into it," Mac said. "Said I could keep you company. Father had just adopted you. Obviously Michael didn't tell him he was fucking me."

"How did you survive?" Vic asked. "On the street?" Last night Mac had claimed that he'd never exchanged sex for money, Vic remembered, but maybe that had been a defensive lie.

"Stealing," Mac said. "Hiding. Then dealing drugs, once I'd managed to make some connections. That's how I met Michael."

"Jesus," Vic said. "You were fourteen?"

"Thirteen," Mac said. "I turned fourteen right before I met Michael."

"And it was your father who left you in Hong Kong," Vic remembered. Fuck that man, too.

"Well, I did run away," Mac confessed. "Maybe he could've put a little effort into _looking_ for me ... but, I mean, it's not like we loved each other. We barely knew each other."

"Why were you with him at all?" Vic asked. "Where was your mother?"

Mac tightened up noticeably. "Ah, I really don't want to talk about that."

"Okay," Vic said.

"No, but I think I have to," Mac said. "Because that was definitely the worst thing. And if I don't tell you now, then I'm going to be thinking about how I haven't told you, so I'm going to be thinking about _it_ , and that is the opposite of what I want."

Vic wasn't entirely sure he'd followed that, but he hugged Mac tighter anyway and said, "All right, then you should tell us."

"She was having a meeting with some local exporters," Mac said. "We were in a warehouse somewhere in Burma. I was at a table in the corner, doing a geometry workbook. We didn't stay in one place long enough for me to go to school very often, so she got me to do workbooks."

"Ah," Vic said. "Okay." Well, that was _some_ kind of parenting. But he could feel Mac shaking, so Vic was afraid of where this story was going.

"There was a crash," Mac said. "A, um, truck—actually I think maybe it was an armoured jeep? It ripped through the main doors. There were a bunch of men with machine guns. There was shouting, gunfire—the men in the warehouse had guns, too. They fought back but I don't think they had much effect, the guys on the jeep were wearing full assault gear, bulletproof helmets, the works. So. Um. They killed everybody except me. I just sat there at the table in the corner. I didn't even think to duck, but nobody shot me. And then after the shooting stopped, the men from the jeep just kind of stood around. One of them was talking into a radio. A couple of them started smoking. I couldn't move at first. My legs were shaking too much. But everyone was ignoring me, or they seemed to be, anyway—I don't know, I didn't speak much Burmese, maybe the guy with the radio was talking about me. I, um, crawled. Over to my mother. She was ... um. On the floor. There was a lot of blood, all around her. I had to crawl through it. Her, um, part of her face ... part of her skull was blown away. I could see her brains—" Mac stood up very suddenly, and dashed for the kitchen.

Vic cast a quick, desperate glance at Li Ann, but she seemed to be frozen, so he ran after Mac.

Mac was throwing up into the sink.

"Fuck," Vic said, coming up beside Mac. It was all he could think of to say. He put a hand on Mac's back, and started rubbing it gently in circles. Mac was hanging on to the edge of the sink with a white-knuckled grip, and still vomiting.

After a few more seconds, Mac stopped heaving, but he didn't raise his head or move. Vic reached over and turned on the cold water tap, to clear the sink. He kept rubbing Mac's back with his other hand; he could feel Mac shaking.

"You don't have to talk about it any more," Vic said. His voice came out a bit hoarse.

Mac shook his head, didn't say anything, and started throwing up again.

Vic caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and he saw that Li Ann had come out to the kitchen. She stayed on the far side of Vic from Mac, and didn't say anything. She looked pale. Vic reached out his free hand to her, and she took it and squeezed it. Her hand was cold.

Vic contemplated the fact that he was unquestionably in over his head.

Fucking ... fuck.

"The men in the jeep," Mac said into the sink. "I think they worked for the government. They brought me to a place with other kids. Sort of like a jail, but not. I really didn't understand what was going on. A few weeks later my father came and picked me up." He let out a desperate little laugh. "I've never talked about this before without being really fucking drunk. I don't like it. Please can we get some fucking liquor from somewhere?"

Vic let go of Li Ann's hand so that he could reach up into the overhead cupboard and get a glass. He didn't stop rubbing Mac's back with his other hand. He filled the glass with water, and held it up to Mac's lips. "Here," he said. "Rinse your mouth." He tilted the glass, let Mac take in some water, then drew it away. Mac obediently swished the water in his mouth, and spat. He released his white-knuckled grip on the sink's edge with one hand, and wiped his mouth. He reached for the glass, so Vic gave it to him. Mac took a couple of gulps of water, then set the glass on the counter.

"Okay," Vic said, frantically trying to come up with a plan. "We're going to go back to the living room now, if you're done puking."

"I think so," Mac said.

Vic kept a hand on Mac's back as they walked—shuffled, more—back to the living room. Li Ann shadowed them silently.

"Okay," Vic said. "Now you two are going to sit on the couch. And I am going to find us a video to watch, because I think that was enough talking for one night." Oh, man, was it ever.

Li Ann and Mac both obeyed quietly—which was itself worrying, in a way, but Vic would take it—and Vic went to look through the tapes on Mac's shelf. He only had a small collection of movies, and almost all of them were R-rated martial arts flicks, which didn't seem like the best idea right now. There was one comedy, so Vic went with that. _The Full Monty_ ; Vic vaguely remembered hearing good things about it. He stuck it in the VCR and hit play. The Interpol warning popped up.

He turned around. Mac and Li Ann were sitting on the couch, with about half a person's width of space between them. Li Ann's back was straight; Mac was hunched over, apparently gazing at the floor near Vic's feet. They were both hollow-eyed.

"Okay," Vic said. "We're going to watch this, and then Li Ann's going to sleep on the couch, and Mac and I are going to sleep in Mac's bed."

"Um, I could go home," Li Ann said.

"Nope," Vic said. "Not tonight."

Behind him, the movie started.

Vic went to the couch and sat down on Mac's other side. And then, immediately, because it seemed essential, he put his arm around Mac's shoulders and tugged Mac towards him.

He wasn't sure how Mac was going to react to that, but he was surprised when Mac immediately drew his knees up onto the couch and scooched down against Vic, so that his head was resting against Vic's chest, under his chin.

"All right," Vic murmured, and wrapped his other arm around Mac too, so he was hugging him around the torso. "I've got you."

Mac started shivering.

"Um, Li Ann?" Vic said. "Could you go get a blanket from Mac's bed?"

She looked at Mac and Vic, then got up and disappeared into Mac's bedroom. She came back with the comforter. She draped it over Mac, who didn't respond. Then she tucked herself under the other end, at Mac's feet—and she pulled her own feet up onto the couch too, and leaned against Mac's raised knees.

Mac was still shivering, but Vic felt like he'd done everything he could.

Well. Had he? Time to take stock.

He'd finally gotten Mac to open up about his past. Or, well, maybe Mac had made that decision independently.

Vic no longer had any questions about why Mac had nightmares.

And as a bonus, Vic had also found out that Li Ann had been a child prostitute. Which did, it was true, explain why Mac was always walking on eggshells around her with regards to the subject of their pre-Tang past. And Li Ann had assured Vic that Mac was overreacting about that, but ... yeah, nothing that she'd said or done since that moment had given him the impression that she was fine.

Onscreen, a steel mill had shut down and the workers were depressed and desperate and having problems in their personal lives. So far it didn't seem very funny. At least nobody was getting shot.

Vic wished he had anywhere to turn to for help with all this. But the secrecy they operated under made it impossible to access the kind of resources that a normal person might call on at a time like this, and what was the Agency offering? The Director had shoved some pills into Mac's hand and called it a day.

She'd also threatened to get Mac killed if he didn't work for her, Vic remembered Mac telling him—which wasn't the best start to a nurturing employer/employee relationship.

So Vic was on his own.

Or, not exactly on his own. He had Li Ann as an ally. Sort of. She definitely loved Mac, and Vic could tell that she wanted to help him—but actually, come to think of it, most of her help so far had consisted of shoving Vic towards him.

Well, at least that said something about Li Ann's confidence in Vic's ability to help.

* * *

It took about a solid twenty minutes before Mac stopped shivering. After that, he just watched the movie quietly.

Actually, all that Vic really knew was that Mac's eyes were open, and he was looking towards the screen. Vic wasn't sure if Mac was processing what was in front of him.

The same went for Li Ann, actually.

The movie turned out to be pretty grim, for a comedy, but there were definitely some funny moments, and nobody laughed.

Also, it turned out to be about amateur male strippers. And two of the men had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gay romance happening. That made Vic a little contemplative. The movie had probably been sitting on Mac's shelf for months, since long before Mac had come out to Vic (or more precisely, since Li Ann had outed him). One more clue that Vic had missed?

Vic felt like he had a pretty good picture of what Mac and Michael's relationship had been like, now. Michael had used alcohol and Mac's trauma to maintain emotional control over Mac; he'd withheld affection except for when Mac was at his absolute most vulnerable; and he'd been physically abusive, particularly when Mac was young.

Vic sincerely wanted to kill Michael; but of course Li Ann already had.

What the hell was Vic going to do about Mac?

He wasn't going to be leaving him alone at night any time soon, that was for sure. But was that enough?

Vic had really thought that talking about the troubling events from his past would be good for Mac, but now Vic felt like he'd bitten off a lot more than he could chew. That story about his mother. _Fuck_. Now it was in Vic's head, and he thought it might give _him_ nightmares. But for Mac, to have lived it—Vic literally shuddered, picturing it again, thirteen-year-old Mac with the gunshots still ringing in his ears, dragging himself through the pool of his mother's blood and seeing her ruined face and spattered brains.

 _Fuck_. Mac was squeamish. He got woozy around blood and gore. Vic had teased him about it lots of times. He'd teased him about it last night. _Pretty lame for a bad-ass Triad gangster,_ he'd said.

Fucking hell, Vic was an asshole.

Well, he hadn't known.

He hadn't even remotely imagined.

He hugged Mac tighter.


	12. Chapter 12

By the time the movie ended, Li Ann was asleep, draped over Mac's knees.

Mac was still tucked up against Vic's chest, wide-eyed awake.

"Let's go to bed," Vic whispered.

They were essentially in a pile with Vic on the bottom and Li Ann on the top, which was awkward since she was the one who was unconscious.

Vic eased himself out sideways first. Then he gave Mac a hand, and Mac extracted himself, gently lowering Li Ann's upper body onto the couch cushions. She murmured and shifted a little, but didn't seem to wake up. Mac tucked the comforter around her.

"Okay, bed now," Vic whispered again. "You have a spare comforter in your closet, right?"

Mac shook his head. "I mean yes," he whispered back. "I do. But I don't want to sleep. It's okay, you can. I'll just sit up. Maybe read a book."

Vic was dog-tired, but he braced himself to deal with this. No fucking way was he leaving Mac alone. "I'm not going to sleep without you," he said.

"Look, I'm not going to drink," Mac said. "There's nothing in the house. I'm just going to stay up."

"All night?" Vic said.

"Yeah. It's okay. I do that sometimes."

Vic suppressed a groan. Just how many self-destructive coping mechanisms could one person have? "Do you," he said.

"Sometimes. If I've had a bad run with the dreams. It doesn't get me in trouble with the Director like the drinking does."

"Um, it doesn't?" Vic said.

"Not if she doesn't notice." Mac shrugged. "Or, well, maybe. I haven't actually had to do it since she gave me the pills. But I really don't have a good feeling about tonight."

Vic bit back a few possible responses, and just asked, "What time is your shift tomorrow at the club?"

"It's Friday night, I'll be there while it's open. 6 p.m. till 2 a.m."

"Okay, Mac, you _have_ to sleep before then. But if you want to stay up for a while first ... I'll sit with you."

Mac gave in at that point; he had to know that Vic was stubborn enough to keep insisting. They changed into pyjamas in separate rooms, Vic having come prepared with an overnight bag this time.

Mac had said that he was going to read, but he really didn't have a lot of books. Vic hadn't thought to pack one, either. Vic ended up grabbing the one that Li Ann had been looking at earlier, which turned out to be a pretty flaky New-Age text called _Cosmic Devotions_.

Vic was determined not to tease Mac about his reading choices—it was _not_ the night for that—but when Mac saw what Vic had brought into the bedroom, he gave a sheepish wince. "I picked that one up after the _last_ time I almost died," he said. "Before Michael. My close encounter with the Cleaners' new poison."

"Ah, right," Vic said. He sat himself cross-legged on Mac's bed, the book on his lap. "That was, wow, almost a month and a half ago?"

"I'm reading this one now, it's better." Mac passed Vic the book he was holding, for examination. _Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind._ It wasn't clear to Vic what made it better. At least the cover was an elegant black, white and grey, as opposed to the garish blue of _Cosmic Devotions_.

"Well," Vic said, handing it back, "As long as you're enjoying it."

" _Enjoying_ isn't the right word," Mac said. "But I thought maybe I'd try to keep working on the meditation."

Mac had meditated sometimes while he was recovering from his concussion, Vic remembered. Vic had tried it with him a couple of times, and found it a lot harder than it looked.

Actually, wasn't meditation supposed to lead to inner peace? This could be a good thing for Mac. "How's it going?" Vic asked.

Mac grimaced. "Awful. I hate sitting still."

Even so, he tucked his knees up and opened the book.

* * *

_Cosmic Devotions_ was basically unreadable. The prose was vague and wandering, there was no plot, and Vic's eyes were crossing with weariness.

Even so, it was Mac who started nodding off first. Vic watched it happening. Mac's eyes started to droop, and then his head. Then he suddenly caught himself—there was a sharp breath, and he shook his head and blinked, and lifted the book determinedly.

It occurred to Vic that Mac had to be exhausted. Last night he'd been throwing up until 3 a.m., and then he'd woken up at 8 a.m. just in time to throw up again.

Vic hadn't gotten any more sleep than Mac had, but at least he hadn't had alcohol poisoning.

After the second head-drooping incident, Mac put his book down and stood up. "I'm going for a walk," he said.

"Outside?" Vic asked, with a bit of trepidation.

"I could use some fresh air." Mac opened a drawer in his dresser, took out a charcoal-grey wool sweater, and pulled it on over his pyjama top.

"No. Shit, Mac, stop this. You need to sleep."

Mac braced his hands on the open drawer, and didn't look at Vic. "You know why I don't want to sleep," he said.

"Yeah, I know." Vic took a deep breath, trying to think of the right thing to say here. Maybe there was no right thing. "I know you don't want to, but you're going to have to. So let's think this through. You're going to sleep, and you're going to dream."

"That's one word for it," Mac said tightly. He was still hunched over the drawer.

"And the dreams are gonna _suck_. And you're going to start thrashing around, because that's what happens. And that'll wake me up. And then I'll wake you up, and whatever was happening in the dream, you'll see that it's _not happening anymore_. You're going to be here, in this room, and you're going to be with me, and you're going to be safe."

Mac finally looked over at Vic. "Why are you here?" he asked, quietly.

That was such a complicated fucking question. "Because I care about you," Vic said, after a slightly awkward pause.

Mac took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. He went and switched off the light, and then climbed into the bed—taking the side that was still pushed up against the wall. "Let's do this."

Mac hadn't removed the sweater; it was a bit scratchy. Vic lay down next to Mac and wrapped his arms around him anyway. "It's gonna be okay," he whispered, willing it to be true.

* * *

As it turned out, it didn't take thrashing to wake Vic up. About 3:30 a.m., Mac started twitching, and whimpering. Vic came instantly awake, with a hit of adrenaline. He sat up and shook Mac's arm. "Wake up, Mac," he whispered.

Mac's eyes popped open. He didn't say anything, he just took a couple of shallow breaths.

Vic allowed himself an optimistic thought that maybe he'd caught the dream before it really got going. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Mac curled into a tight ball and tucked his arms over his head. He made a low, moaning sound, and started to rock.

"Ah, not okay. Shit."

Vic edged in carefully towards Mac—not wanting to startle him. Not wanting to get _kicked_ , which had happened once. When he was close enough, he said cautiously, "Mac, I'm here. It's me, Vic. We're in Toronto, in your apartment. I'm going to touch you, now." He reached out and laid a hand on Mac's shoulder.

He could feel Mac shivering. Mac didn't react to Vic's touch, for better or for worse. So Vic decided to move in closer, and carefully wrapped his arms around Mac. "Hey," he said. "I'm here."

Mac shifted, and pressed his face against Vic's chest. Vic let his chin rest on the top of Mac's head, and kept a tight hold. Mac seemed to be trying to bury himself in Vic's embrace, so Vic figured he'd made the right move.

Then Mac started to cry.

He didn't make any sound, apart from the unevenly-spaced, gasping breaths, but Vic could feel him shaking with it, could feel the warm dampness against the open triangle of skin where the top button of Vic's pyjama shirt had come undone.

"It's okay," Vic murmured at intervals, totally at a loss.

It occurred to Vic that he was really in deep, now. It wasn't going to be an option to back out, to say 'Whoa, this is too much, I didn't know what I was getting myself in for!'

Test that thought. Did Vic _want_ out?

God, no. If Mac was falling apart, then Vic was determined to hold him together with both hands. Because he was _worth_ it—he was strong, funny, brave, he always had Vic's back ... and he needed Vic.

But what _was_ this that Vic was doing? He'd started making commitments, promises. He'd pushed Mac's bed against the wall and said that he'd take the outside.

Was this a _relationship_?

Could you be in a relationship without even kissing?

Vic had no idea. But it didn't matter right now, he decided. Mac was curled up in his arms, shivering and weeping, and there wasn't anything more important right now than Vic's determination to _hold_ him and try to help him come back from wherever the nightmare had taken him.

It took a long time, but finally Mac's breathing steadied. He sniffled.

Vic leaned over and managed to grab the kleenex box on the bedside table, without letting go of Mac. "Here," he said.

Mac took a tissue, blew his nose.

"Do you want to talk?" Vic asked.

Mac shook his head.

"Okay," Vic said. "Let's go back to sleep."

They lay down again, and Mac curled in close to Vic's chest—with his forehead pressed right against Vic's collarbone, just like he'd done while he was crying. Vic put his arm around Mac and closed his eyes.

Okay. They were going to make it through this night.

* * *

The next time Vic woke up, it was nine-thirty in the morning. He felt well-rested. Mac was still asleep, still curled up against Vic's chest.

Vic lay there for a while, appreciating the peaceful feeling. The wan January daylight gave Mac's pale bedroom a subtle watercolour glow. Last night seemed safely distant.

Eventually Vic eased himself out of the bed, leaving Mac to sleep for as long as he needed to.

Li Ann was in the kitchen, drinking tea. "Good morning," she said. "There's literally no food in the house. I wanted to wait for you to wake up before I left, though."

Vic scratched his head. "Ah, yeah, I think Mac does takeout even for breakfast." He sat at the table, looked at her. "How are you doing?"

"All right," she said. She poured him some tea without asking, and passed it to him. She'd had two extra teacups sitting out on the table. "Last night—that was a lot to take in." She shook her head thoughtfully. "Mac and Michael were a lot more discreet than I gave them credit for. I saw them kiss once, which was when I realized that they were lovers—but that was only a few years before Mac and I ran away. I had absolutely no idea that they'd had that relationship since the beginning."

Vic privately thought that _relationship_ was not the appropriate word to use for what Michael had done to Mac, but he decided not to press the point. If he brought up his feelings about adults who had sex with children, Li Ann would definitely feel like he was referring to the revelation about her own past. Which was definitely a thing that Vic thought that they _should_ talk about, at some point, but just now when he'd asked 'how are you doing?', she had responded by talking about Mac.

"And he'd never said anything at all about how he was raised?" Vic asked, instead. "His mother?"

She shook her head. "Neither one of us wanted to talk about the past." She sipped her tea, looking thoughtful. "There are some things that make more sense now. Like—his reaction the first time we did firearms training."

Vic frowned. "Which was?"

"About thirty seconds after Michael put the gun in his hand, Mac put it down abruptly and ran outside. I followed him, and I found him on his hands and knees, being sick into the gutter. He told me he had food poisoning, but I could tell he was lying—something about holding the gun had done that to him. I thought that was pretty weird; I thought the guns were fun."

"Shit," Vic said.

She shrugged. "It never happened again, though. The next time, he was fine."

Vic's fingers worried at the edge of his teacup. "How the hell does he even _do_ what we do? I mean, shootouts are a part of our _job_. How does he not fall apart?"

Li Ann looked thoughtful. "No, that's the wrong question," she said. "The question is, why don't _we_ fall apart? A normal person would."

"Er," Vic said, "Do you have an answer?"

"We're all broken," Li Ann said, picking up her teacup again. "In particular ways. The Director selected us for it, carefully. Mac—he learned to cope."

"Sort of," Vic said, thinking of the nightmares, and the vodka.

She acknowledged that with a little nod. "Last night—he really broke down, didn't he?"

Vic had seen Mac breaking down a lot lately, but he realized that Li Ann hadn't been around for any of that. "Yeah," he said. "That was rough. I think, though ... I think it's good that he told us." He looked at her. "I'm glad that you told me about your history, too," he said, carefully.

She grimaced into her teacup. "I don't want to talk about it, Vic."

"That's fine," he said quickly, because he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. "Just—it's a thing you survived. I'm glad that I know."

She took a deep breath, exhaled. Then she made a wry half-smile and picked up her teacup, holding it as though for a toast. "Here's to surviving," she said.

Vic picked up his own cup, and tapped it against hers. "Cheers to that."

* * *

Vic convinced Li Ann to go out and get supplies, and bring them back so that Vic could make breakfast. "Eggs, bread, milk, butter, maple syrup," he ticked the items off on his fingers. "I'll make French toast." Mac might not have food, but at least he had pots and pans; this was _theoretically_ a functional kitchen.

Vic didn't hear Mac get up, but he heard the shower starting to run a few minutes before Li Ann came through the door with the groceries. The sound was at the back of Vic's awareness as he heated the pan, cracked the eggs and mixed the batter; he heard the shower stop just as he put the first sodden slices of bread on the pan, so he wasn't surprised when Mac walked into the kitchen just as Vic was putting the first three pieces of French toast onto plates.

Mac had gotten dressed in the clothes he wore for working at the club—sturdy black slacks and a tight black t-shirt. Vic felt a little under-dressed as the only one still in his p.j.'s—though, to be fair, Li Ann was actually still in her clothes from yesterday.

"Good morning," Vic said.

"Mmph," Mac said, vaguely. He sat down and poured himself a cup of tea from the pot sitting on the table. He sipped, and made a face. "It's cold."

"It was hot two hours ago," Li Ann said mildly.

Mac shrugged, took another sip, and gave her a sheepish grin.

"The French toast is hot," Vic pointed out. "And there's maple syrup."

He was gratified when Mac and Li Ann dug in, and made appreciative noises. There had been occasions in the past when Vic had attempted some over-ambitious cooking and the results had not been welcomed by his partners. But you couldn't really go wrong with French toast, especially when it was drizzled with Quebec maple syrup.

They ate, chatting idly. Vic made another round of French toast. Neither Mac nor Li Ann showed any signs of wanting to address what had happened last night, and Vic decided to follow their cues.

Finally Vic glanced over at the clock on the stove and saw that it was getting close to noon already. "I'm supposed to meet 3-Jay soon," he said. "I've got to get going."

Li Ann pushed her chair back. "Yeah, me too. I need a shower and a change of clothes."

Vic looked over at Mac. Throughout breakfast he'd seemed relaxed, drowsily cheerful—but last night had been really fucking rough. "Are you going to be okay on your own?" Vic asked, trying not to make it sound too heavy.

Mac froze, for like a fraction of a second. Then he shook it off and shot Vic a vaguely puzzled frown. "Uh, yeah," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Vic decided to treat that as a rhetorical question. "Hey, let's all meet up back here tonight," he said.

Mac raised an eyebrow. "Remember my shift ends at 2 a.m.," he said.

"Yeah, well, Li Ann and I both have keys," Vic said.

"I'm going to be at the club, too," Li Ann pointed out. "It's Drag Night. I think I'm finally going to meet Ebony Stalking."

Vic was picking up a bit of a reluctant vibe from both of them. Maybe last night had left them a little shell-shocked. "Look, 3-Jay said he's got special plans for me today," Vic reminded them. "I'm going to want to check in after that."

Vic saw Mac and Li Ann exchange a significant look, and then all of a sudden they were both agreeing easily—yes, of course, they'd all meet back here after Drag Night. They'd sit with Vic and help him decompress, pull out a pack of cards and play some games at 3 a.m. if that's what he wanted, no problem.

It was fascinating how quickly they'd shifted gears as soon as Vic had implied that _he_ needed _their_ help. He'd have to remember that one.


	13. Chapter 13

Mac clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering, and took the driver's licence from the next guy in line. He held it up so that the light over the club's front door would hit it better, and squinted at the date of birth. "Okay," he said, handing it back, "Go in."

Oops, he'd forgotten to check the picture against the guy's face. Again.

Oh well; his real job here was not to prevent underage drinking. In fact, he felt like it would be pretty hypocritical of him to stop anyone from underage drinking, considering his own history.

He stamped his feet, trying to coax his body to warm up a bit, and held out a hand for the next piece of ID.

He'd been out here for five hours already, and he'd decided that winter was _definitely_ his least favourite thing about Toronto.

The other bouncer, Ryan, was wearing a much bulkier coat than Mac was. If Mac was going to be doing many more shifts like this, he should probably get a warmer coat too. Or ask the Director to get him one. He was doing this for her, after all.

Earlier in the night, when there'd been no line-up to get in, Mac had had the chance to chat with Ryan a bit. He seemed nice. Out of Mac's league, generally speaking—he was doing this job for some extra cash while he did a Master's degree in English Literature at the University of Toronto—but they liked some of the same music, so that had given them something to talk about. Something _safe_.

Mac had been doing a lot of unsafe talking lately, with Vic and Li Ann. Even with Ben. Talking about Michael, about living on the street, about his _mother_ for fuck's sake.

At this point, Vic clearly thought that Mac was a basket case. Mac got the impression that Vic wasn't planning to let Mac spend another night alone any time soon, or possibly ever.

And Mac had to admit, he'd given Vic a few reasons to believe that he wouldn't be safe on his own.

It was a little irritating, though. Mac had made it through _hell_ by himself, more than once. He'd survived on the streets of Hong Kong. He'd survived prison—somehow. He'd survived his first thirteen months at the Agency, with Michael dead (he thought) and Li Ann engaged to Vic (for a while), and nobody looking out for him but the Director. And _her_ support was questionable; she'd fixed his binge drinking episodes by throwing him in her dungeon for two days at a time and reminding him cheerfully that if he stopped being useful to her, she could always have him killed.

And now Vic thought that Mac couldn't make it through the night without Vic cuddling him.

Shit. Was Mac projecting? He did that sometimes.

Mac really didn't want to ever have to go through another night without Vic cuddling him.

This was a problem, because as bizarre and wonderful as it was that Vic had decided that he liked cuddling Mac, this was not a stable situation. Vic was straight, and one of these days he was going to come to his senses and realize that the things he was doing with Mac were not things that straight men _did_.

And meanwhile, Mac was becoming addicted to Vic. To his smell, his touch, his solid, comforting presence. _Fuck._ Mac was so screwed.

He felt a tap at his elbow.

He turned and saw Ben grinning up at him. Ben was in street clothes, but at his side was a taller drag queen in full regalia.

It was Ebony Stalking.

"This is Mac, the new security guard I was telling you about," Ben was saying. "Mac, this is Ebony."

Ebony held out her hand—not sideways, as for a handshake, but palm down, as though she expected Mac to kiss the back of it. Feeling his lips quirk with amusement, he did so.

"Enchantée," she said.

"Ebony's agreed that you can take a break from work during the fundraiser to be in my piece," Ben said to Mac.

"Darling, you didn't give me any choice," Ebony said, with a mock pout. She gave Mac a good look up and down, and the pout turned into a hungry-looking smile. "Now that I've seen him, I can understand your eagerness," she said. "I look forward to seeing what you're doing with him." She leaned over and kissed Ben on both cheeks. "Good night, my darling!"

"Good night," Ben said. "Oh, and don't forget that I really need that brief by ten a.m. Monday."

Ebony put a hand on her hip and gave Ben a quick, quelling frown. "No shop talk while I'm glittering," she said sternly. "You know the rules."

Ben held up his hands in apology. "Mea culpa," he said. "Good night, Mac! See you tomorrow afternoon for rehearsal!"

Ben left, hailing a cab. Ebony gave Mac a saucy wave and went back inside the club. Mac went back to checking IDs and freezing.

On the inside, though, he was cheering. _No shop talk._ Ebony worked with Ben! It shouldn't be hard now to figure out who she was.

* * *

Around half past midnight, Mac noticed a sudden change in the ambient traffic noises. He lifted his head, tracking the sound. It sounded like a bunch of motorcycles, getting closer.

A pack of six—no, seven—make that eight motorcycles rounded the corner of the block. Mac handed back the IDs to the couple he'd just been checking, and eased himself away from the head of the line so that he could get a better look. The motorcycles pulled to a stop along the side of the road about three doors down from the club. The riders stepped off their bikes, stretching and rolling their shoulders in a slightly exaggerated way.

A couple of men who had just left the club, walking hand in hand, drew level with the bikers. Mac could see their steps faltering, then speeding up.

Two of the bikers stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the couple, blocking their way.

"Call the police," Mac told Ryan, urgently. "Now." Ignoring Ryan's confused "What's happening?"—he'd figure it out soon enough—Mac jogged towards the burgeoning confrontation.

By now the bikers were surrounding the couple. Not touching them yet, Mac saw with relief. But this was not good.

When Mac was still about fifteen metres away, the bikers started to bark.

Mac actually slowed down for a moment, just trying to process what he was seeing and hearing.

It was a rhythmic, shouted, angry, "Woof! Woof! Woof!" They were synced up, all shouting together. Their fists were clenched, mostly, but held at their sides.

The couple in the middle were looking panicky. They tried to break out through one side of the circle, but the guys on that side planted hands on their chests and pushed them back into the middle.

Mac reached the group.

"Hey!" he said, pitching his voice as loud as he could to carry over the barking. "That's enough. Time to let these nice folks leave."

The guys in the middle shot grateful, desperate looks at Mac. The bikers ignored him, mostly, and kept barking.

One of the bikers was Vic.

Mac didn't let his gaze rest on Vic for long. Instead he grabbed the biker nearest himself by the shoulders and yanked him out of the circle. "Hey!" he said again. "Those guys want to go."

The biker rounded on Mac with an angry scowl, and Mac gave him a good shove out of his way. This created a break in the circle—the two men trapped in the middle lurched towards the opening, and when one of the bikers moved to get in their way, Mac was there, pushing him back.

"Go!" Mac snapped at the two guys. "Run!"

They scrambled through the opening that Mac was holding, and one of them seemed ready to sprint away as fast as he could, but the other guy, holding his hand, hesitated just outside of the circle. "What about you?" he said, frantically.

Mac grinned, making it look as careless as he knew how. "I'll be fine," he said. "The police are on their way. And I know kung fu."

That was all he had time to say, because then one of the bikers jumped him from behind.

Mac heard rapid footsteps departing; the two guys had followed his advice. Good.

Mac versus eight bikers. He could do this.

Hopefully without hurting Vic.

The guy who'd jumped him was smaller than Mac; Mac broke his hold with sheer force, nothing fancy, and shook him off. He tried to back up a step—he was in the middle of the circle now, which was not a good place to be.

Scanning his line of opponents, his eye caught on Vic's. While the other guys were looking angry—feral, even—Vic was looking trapped and desperate. Shit. Vic was going to be in trouble if anybody noticed that.

Mac made a quick fake to the left, snapped the back of his fist lightly against one guy's head, and then dove to the right, catching Vic in a half-tackle. They wrestled for a moment, making a good show of trying to overpower each other, and Mac managed to bring their faces close together.

"Get me out of here," Vic murmured frantically. There was alcohol on his breath.

"Get ready to tuck and roll," Mac muttered.

He found his balance, got under Vic's arm, and threw him diagonally down the sidewalk into a bank of metal garbage cans. That made a gratifyingly thunderous clatter. Vic sagged down among the cans, which Mac very much hoped meant that Vic was wisely trying to remove himself from the fight, rather than actually being hurt.

The other guys were sort of circling Mac, now, but they looked edgy, reluctant to approach him. He glared around at them, held his fists up in an ostentatiously ready pose, bounced a little on his toes. He thought that he could take all of these guys if he had to, but not without seriously hurting some of them. It would be better if he could just scare them off. "Yeah, that's right," he said. "Let's all keep our distance. The fun's over, time for all you good boys to go home."

For a moment Mac thought it was working. One of the guys, a pudgy thirty-something man with thinning blond hair, sort of eased out of the pack, took a shuffling step towards the bikes, and said, "Hey you guys, let's call it a night."

Unfortunately—"Don't be such a pussy, T-Rex," said another guy, with a fierce scowl. He was the youngest-looking one in the group. Mac suspected that if he'd seen this guy's ID, he wouldn't have been able to let him in the club. The guy had a shaved head, bare to the cold night, and a neck tattoo peeking over the top of his jacket's collar that looked like it might be the top two lines of a swastika.

"No, you should listen to T-Rex," Mac said, holding his hands up—and grinning, because T-Rex was the marshmallow dinosaur! "The police will be here any second now. If you're not gone by then, the rest of your night is gonna suck."

"Hey, we haven't done anything wrong," said a third guy, all oily-like. He was a bit on the bulkier side, with a bald head that looked natural rather than shaven, and a thick black beard. "Just expressed our opinions to a couple of queers." He laughed, unpleasantly.

Mac scanned the group. None of them looked like 3-Jay, and he couldn't figure out which of them was the deputy leader. "Your opinions suck," he said.

Okay, de-escalation had never been one of Mac's strengths. That was usually Vic's job, or Li Ann's in a pinch.

Anyway, the police would be here any second. Right?

"Say that again," the young skinhead gritted out, taking an aggressive step towards Mac.

And, oh shit, the guy suddenly had a switchblade glinting in his hand.

Mac thought of the gun hidden under his trousers, in his ankle holster. But that was a last resort—it would mean breaking cover, because Mac-the-security-guard was _not_ supposed to be carrying a concealed firearm.

Mac took a step back. His hands were open in front of him, but that just meant that he was ready to block. "Let's not do anything stupid," he said. "That looks like an illegal weapon. You don't want to get caught with it when the police get here, which they will _really really_ soon."

"Yeah," T-Rex said, "I think we should go."

The skinhead with the knife bared his teeth at Mac, like he wanted to bite him, and didn't back down.

Mac heard the clattering of garbage cans behind him, and then Vic was coming around beside him, saying "T-Rex is right, I think I hear sirens."

If there were sirens, it was only part of the constant background noise of the city—Mac didn't hear any _approaching_. But he could see what Vic was doing, and it seemed to be working—other than the young skinhead, the other guys were casting antsy looks towards their bikes. Mac guessed that most of them really didn't want to talk to the police tonight.

He tried to help the situation by backing away slowly, hands still in the air.

The guy with the beard put a hand on the skinhead's elbow, and nodded towards the bikes. The skinhead's shoulders went down; he gave Mac one more quick glare, but the knife disappeared and he stalked over to his bike.

Mac didn't really let out his breath until they were all roaring away around the corner of the block.

* * *

The whole situation seemed a little bit funnier and considerably less dire when Mac was describing it to Li Ann in his apartment at 2:30 in the morning.

" _Barking_?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"I guess that's why they call themselves the Dog Pack," Mac said.

There was a knock at his apartment door.

"That'll be Vic," Mac said, getting up.

"I thought that you said that you gave him a key."

"I did," Mac said. "Well, he came in with no warning a couple of nights ago and I drew a gun on him."

"Fair," Li Ann acknowledged, and leaned back on the couch.

Better safe than sorry; Mac checked the peephole before he opened the door. It was Vic, all right. "Hey," Mac said, opening the door. "That was some performance tonight."

Vic pushed inside, getting right up in Mac's personal space in a way that he usually avoided. He was giving off a pretty strong alcohol smell. "Mac," he said, in an urgent desperate sort of way—and then he was grabbing Mac's shoulders, and pulling him in, and ... mashing their lips together.

Mac froze for a moment, trying to process what was happening.

Vic was _kissing_ him.

Mac's heart started racing, and he had no idea what was happening, but he threw caution to the wind and kissed Vic back.

Vic's hands were pawing at Mac's back, tugging at his hair. His kisses were intense, bruising. He was making frantic little noises deep in his throat, and Mac's heart skipped a beat at every one. Mac could feel Vic's cock, hard, against his thigh, and Mac's own body was responding in kind. Vic was backing Mac into the apartment, and Mac stumbled a little, but caught himself, and then he heard Li Ann say, "Uh, guys?"

"Um," Mac said, belatedly, pulling away just a little and trying to catch his breath, "Li Ann's here."

"What are you doing?" Li Ann asked. It came out a little high-pitched.

Vic stumbled forward towards Mac. Mac caught him. "Uh, Vic is drunk," Mac realized, and simultaneously reported.

Vic tried to kiss Mac again, and this time Mac dodged it. " _Very_ drunk," Mac amended.

"Oh my God, Vic, did you drive here?" Li Ann asked.

Vic shook his head. "Took a cab." He pawed at Mac again. "Let me kiss you. They're _garbage_. They don't know you."

"Stop it, Vic," Mac said, ducking aside again. _Shit_. If there were gods, they were definitely laughing at Mac tonight. There was _nothing_ he would love more than Vic holding him and kissing him—but fuck, not like this. Vic would _kill_ him in the morning if he let anything happen. "Li Ann is right here," he pointed out again, hoping that would calm things down.

"She can leave," Vic said.

"Uh, no, she really can't," Mac countered, shooting Li Ann a wide-eyed _help me!_ signal.

"Right," Li Ann said, standing up. "Maybe some tea?"

"Some nice tea?" Mac repeated to Vic, holding him firmly at arm's length. "Glass of water?"

Vic's face crumpled, though he didn't actually start to cry. "They're fucking _animals_ ," he said. "And I had to—I had to say things..." He looked at Mac, just overcome with horror, "...about _you_."

"Okay, I get it," Mac said. "Bad night with 3-Jay and the gang." He took another look at Vic's face, and pulled him in for a tight hug. "It's okay. We're all okay. And you're doing this for a _reason_. You're going to find out if they're planning to hurt somebody, and if they are we're going to stop them."

* * *

Between Mac and Li Ann, they got Vic's coat and boots off, got him settled on the couch, and got him to drink a glass of water. He didn't make any more attempts to suck face with Mac, but kept muttering anguished things about the scene outside the club, and the Dog Pack drinking session that had apparently followed. Mac gathered, reading slightly between the lines, that Mac himself had been a prominent topic of conversation, and definitely not in a flattering way.

Anyway, in the final reckoning Vic wasn't _that_ drunk—at least not compared to, oh say, some of Mac's recent experiences—and within forty-five minutes he was more or less coherent, and abashed, and ready to go to bed. Falling-over tired, really. Mac and Li Ann helped him to the bedroom together, to avoid incidents, and tucked him in. Vic was snoring almost before his head hit the pillow.

"Wow," Li Ann said, when they were back outside Mac's bedroom door. "Um, do you want me to stay?"

Mac shook his head. "I think it'll be fine. He's not going to come on to me again now."

"He was drunk," Li Ann said, "and very upset. Try not to be mad at him."

"I know," Mac said. "He's going to be dying of embarrassment when he wakes up in the morning."

Li Ann gave Mac a wry look. "Try not to be too hard on him, either."

Mac held his thumb and index finger up, slightly apart. "Just a little bit," he said. "He deserves a _little_ mocking."

Li Ann crossed her arms, and raised an eyebrow at Mac.

"Come on, Li Ann, that was really fucking hard for me," Mac said. "You know why."

She sighed. "Yeah."

"Do you think he meant it?" Mac couldn't help asking her, hopefully, as they walked over towards the door. "Even a little?"

She shrugged. "It can't have come out of _nowhere_."

"Right," Mac agreed, feeling a little spark of optimism flaring up somewhere deep inside. "It really couldn't have."

* * *

Li Ann kissed him goodbye at the door, and then Mac was alone with Vic.

Vic, snoring on the bed, drunk.

Considering the way that Vic had been coming on to Mac earlier ... Mac realized, with a sinking feeling, that he really couldn't sleep on the bed with Vic tonight. If anything happened in the night—if Mac woke them both up with a dream—if Vic was still a little drunk and still a little grabby—something could happen that Vic would regret in the morning. Mac wouldn't regret it, but he sure would regret losing Vic over it.

So Mac put on his pyjamas, and got out the spare blankets and pillow, and went to sleep on the couch.

* * *

Mac was hungry. It was raining. The gutters stank of urine and rotten vegetables. There were rats watching him, hiding from the rain under scattered cardboard boxes, their beady eyes glinting. He threw a rock at one and watched it skitter away. He was afraid of being bitten again.

He went looking for food. There was a café on the next block. Its windows were open, and on a table right by an open window there was a basket of bread. Mac sauntered by, trying to look casual despite the fact that his hair and clothes were plastered to him with the rain while everyone around him was holding umbrellas. He came even with the table, darted out a hand, and grabbed a bun.

"Stop, thief!" somebody yelled.

Mac ran.

His feet pounded the pavement. His eyes streamed with water as the rain pelted his face. The bun was getting soggy—he took a desperate bite, but that slowed him down, and he could hear the angry man coming up behind him.

He ran. His legs felt too heavy. The pavement was slippery. He skidded, skinned his hands and knees, scrambled to his feet, kept running.

He hit a dead end at a fence. The man was pounding down the alley behind him, yelling obscenities. Mac stuffed the bun in his mouth and jumped, grabbing the top of the fence with both hands. He felt the man catch at his ankle, but he kicked, managed to get free, and tumbled over the top of the fence. On the far side he hit the ground hard, and he couldn't breathe.

It was dark.

It was dark and quiet and dry, and he wasn't hungry, and this wasn't Hong Kong.

It wasn't his bedroom, either. What the hell? ... Oh, right. He'd been sleeping on the couch. Now he was on the living room floor.

Mac curled himself into a ball, and tried to pull the tattered bits of his sense of safety around himself.

He wanted Vic.

Oh God, he wanted Vic to be here right now holding on to him and telling him that he was okay.

Fuck, it had only been the running dream. That one wasn't so bad. Even in real life it hadn't been so bad; the man hadn't bothered to follow him over the fence, and he'd eaten the bun. His wrist had been sprained in the fall, which had been a problem, but pretty soon after that he'd gotten his head together enough to realize that he couldn't reliably live off of stealing; he'd made contact with a street dealer, offered his services as a runner, and the rest was history.

If he couldn't deal with the _running dream_ without Vic anymore, then he might as well just give up now.

Mac climbed back up on the couch, and tried to settle back to sleep, but his heart was racing too fast. His mouth felt dry.

He wished he could have just one or two shots of vodka, to convince his nerves to settle down. There wasn't any in the house, though.

He groaned, and sat up.

He had a fleeting thought that he could go for a walk—but no, not with Vic asleep on his bed. If Vic happened to wake up and find himself alone in Mac's apartment, he might panic. He'd call Li Ann, for sure, and then there'd be a lot of explaining to do afterwards. More conversations that Mac really didn't want to have.

So instead he tucked his feet up, cross-legged, and grimly decided to meditate for a while.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

The dream bubbled back up. Running, hungry—let it go.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

Michael coming to him in the night after he'd woken up screaming. Offering him a flask of vodka and the promise of relief from the horrors inside his head.

Shit. Let it go.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Michael hitting him, hard, when Mac dared to touch him without the ritual of the vodka first.

Let it _go_.

Breathing.

His mother—

_Fuck no._

Mac stood up. "Thanks a lot, Sifu Jinpa," he muttered. "That was _great_. Very calming."

He decided to go make tea.

He felt calmer with the kitchen light on, and with something to do with his hands. Filling the kettle, putting it on the stove, getting out the teapot and the cup and the box of tea.

His thoughts went back to Sifu Jinpa. It was funny; he hadn't thought about the man in years. Well, not before he'd decided to start meditating again.

How long had it been? God, ten years. Mac had been sixteen; Li Ann, fourteen. Sifu Jinpa was supposed to teach them mathematics. The godfather had never sent Mac or Li Ann to school, but had brought them a series of tutors. The education had been a little haphazard, but intense. For the six months that Sifu Jinpa had been with them, he'd taught them for three hours every morning, four or five days a week.

Mac had been a brat, back then. He must have gotten on poor Jinpa's last nerve on a daily basis. The ex-monk had started using meditation as a classroom management technique; whenever Mac would start pushing back against the maths lessons, Sifu Jinpa would say "That's it, meditation time!" and make them sit on the floor, cross-legged, and tell them to follow their breaths.

There'd been one time—oh God, how had Mac forgotten about this?—one time Mac had _really_ blown up. Shouting, breaking pencils, knocking over the fucking desk. Sifu Jinpa had thought that Mac was frustrated because he was having trouble with the geometry proofs, but actually Mac was just angry because ... well, he was just _angry_. He was angry a _lot_ back then, it was before he'd learned to turn everything into a joke.

Sifu Jinpa had tried his usual trick of defusing the situation by getting Li Ann and Mac to sit and meditate for a while. It usually worked, because Li Ann would obey immediately, and then Mac would follow her cues. It didn't work that day. Mac had just gotten angrier, yelling about how he hated meditation, it was stupid, it was just _sitting_ and _thinking_ and who the hell wanted to do that?—Had he _hit_ Sifu Jinpa? Shit, he had.

Sifu Jinpa had taken the blow, and just _looked_ at Mac, and that had been enough to break Mac's tirade. He'd had the sense to be ashamed for raising a hand against his teacher.

"Sit down," Jinpa had said then. "I'll tell you a story."

Li Ann had sat in her desk. Mac had had to pick his up and set it on its feet again. Sifu Jinpa had lit a cigarette.

They'd known that he smoked—they could smell it on him—but that was the only time he'd ever done it in front of them, in the godfather's house.

"I grew up in a monastery in Tibet," he'd said. "My parents brought me there when I was six years old. That was common, in that time and place. I wouldn't say that I was happy, at first, but gradually the monks and lamas became my family. I came to enjoy the discipline, the rigorous meditation practice." He took a long, thoughtful pull on his cigarette. "My monastery became involved in the political resistance against the Chinese occupation. One day, when I was fifteen, government troops came to destroy the monastery in reprisal. They shot the lamas and senior monks, in front of the rest of us. The younger monks were taken to prison. I was imprisoned for a decade." He sucked on the cigarette again; the tip glowed cherry red. "Without my meditation practice, I don't think that I would have survived—at least, not with my sanity intact."

Shit, how had Mac forgotten about all that?

He remembered, now—after Sifu Jinpa had told them that story, Mac had come _so close_ to telling him about his mother. The prospect of having an adult who could understand, who could tell Mac how to survive the flashbacks and nightmares, was desperately appealing. But he'd never managed to bring himself to do it.

Mac _had_ taken the meditation more seriously after that. He'd really tried. It had only been another month or so before Sifu Jinpa had disappeared, though, and that had been the end of that.

Maybe if Mac had remembered Sifu Jinpa while he'd been in prison, he would've spent less of the eighteen months under involuntary sedation.

The tea was ready. Mac blew over the hot liquid and sipped, carefully.

He would keep trying, he decided. If meditation had brought Sifu Jinpa sanity through ten years in prison after witnessing the massacre of his monastic family, surely it could do something for Mac.

Just—maybe he wasn't ready yet to do it alone, at night, with his heart still pounding from a nightmare.

He sipped his tea, and breathed slowly. In another hour, maybe, he could go back to sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Vic dragged himself out of the bedroom around ten in the morning, still wearing yesterday's clothes and looking extremely haggard.

Mac was waiting in the kitchen with tea and toast ready to go.

Mac was feeling a little smug, to be honest, about the turnabout. Here he was, sober and perky, ready to nurse _Vic_ through a hangover. "Good morning!" he greeted Vic cheerfully.

Vic gave him a baleful, red-eyed stare, and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs.

Mac pushed a cup of tea at him. "Rough night, Officer Mansfield?"

Vic showed him a middle finger, and cast a doubtful look at the tea. "Do you have coffee?"

"Tea's better for you," Mac said. "You can have coffee later."

Vic took a dubious sip of the tea. Then, putting the cup down but still looking at it, he said, "Sorry about last night."

"You mean the kissing?" Mac shrugged. "You don't have to apologize. I liked it."

Vic turned his bleary eyes on Mac. "You stopped me," he pointed out.

"Yeah, because you were _hammered_. And upset. Clearly not in your right mind." Mac paused for a moment, considered whether the next thing he was about to say would be unwise, and decided to go for it anyway. "If you ever want to kiss me _sober_ , let me know." He tried to make it sound like a careless joke—the kind of needling that Vic was used to from him ... but would it really be terrible if Vic realized that Mac meant it?

Vic just looked at Mac, sort of blankly.

And Mac really never knew when to stop talking. "Do you think you might?" he added.

"Might...?" Vic repeated.

"Want to kiss me," Mac said again, distinctly. "For real." Oh God, what was he doing? He was gonna be lucky if Vic didn't decide to _hit_ him.

"I was drunk," Vic said. "It didn't mean anything."

Well, Mac wasn't quite ready to let him get away with that. "You were hot for me," he pointed out. "You were hard. I could feel it."

Vic winced, visibly. "I don't know why that's happening," he said. "You're messing with my head."

 _I don't know why that's happening_ , Mac repeated in his head, with a sort of delight. Not: _why that happened_.

A while after Sifu Jinpa, the Tang Godfather had arranged an English tutor for Mac and Li Ann. That tutor had been really fucking strict. She'd hit Mac's knuckles with a ruler whenever he'd acted up. But by the time she'd left, Li Ann had been fluent in English, with a clean American accent.

And Mac knew a present continuous tense when he heard one.

"You've been getting turned on," he said, making no attempt to hide his glee. "By me!"

Vic spread a hand over his face, groaning. "You weren't supposed to notice."

"Don't feel bad," Mac said, generously. "I'm very attractive. I'm hard to resist."

And he was teasing Vic, sure, but he was also trying to make it seem less weird, so that maybe Vic would take his hand off his face and look at Mac again.

Besides, it was true—Mac _knew_ he was hot. Personality-wise, sure, he had flaws—long-term relationships were obviously problematical—but he'd almost never had anyone turn down the opportunity for a quick fuck.

He'd never dreamed, though, that straight-as-a-board _Vic_ would succumb to his charms.

"I don't want to kiss you," Vic said, finally lowering his hand. Was he blushing? He was blushing. He reached for the triangle of toast that Mac had put near him, and nibbled it.

"Okay," Mac said, trying not to sound too disappointed. "I mean, maybe that's too gay. We could do something less gay. I could give you a blowjob?"

Vic choked a little on the toast. "How is that _less gay_ than kissing?" he managed to ask, once he got the coughing under control.

 _Michael thought it was,_ was the first answer that came to Mac's head, but Vic always got weird when Mac brought up Michael. "I used to give blowjobs to straight men all the time," he said instead, airily. "In the second-floor men's room at the Tiger Balls club in Hong Kong."

Vic gave him an unreadable look. "Those weren't straight men, Mac," he said after a moment.

Mac shrugged. "They always said that they were."

Vic shook his head, and just said, "Tiger Balls? Really?"

"It sounds slightly better in Cantonese," Mac acknowledged.

Vic took another bite of toast, and this time Mac sat back and let him chew uninterrupted. He wondered what Vic was thinking about—he wondered if he'd already ruined the fragile whatever-it-was that had had Vic climbing into bed with him this past week. Shit. _Why_ didn't Mac ever know when to shut up?

Vic ate a quarter of a slice of toast, and took a few more swallows of tea, before he looked at Mac and said, "Were you okay last night?"

"The kissing really didn't bother me," Mac reassured him again. "And Li Ann stuck around until you were good and asleep."

Vic shook his head. "I mean—the _night_. You were on your own."

Mac's first, instinctive impulse was to brush that off, to say it was fine. He'd been sleeping alone his _whole fucking life_ up until the past three weeks.

But that had sucked, hadn't it?

And if he was really afraid that Vic might stop sleeping with him, maybe he needed to be a little more clear about how he _wanted_ Vic there.

Mac's fingers started drumming on the table of their own accord. "I woke up once," he admitted. "It, um, it wasn't too bad. I made tea. I went back to sleep after about an hour."

"Okay," Vic said. He sounded relieved.

"I wished you were there," Mac forced himself to add. He couldn't look at Vic while he said it.

"Ah," Vic said. And then, "I'm sorry."

Mac shook his head. His fingers kept going tap-tap-tap on the table. "No worries," he said. "It's not like you _promised_ to be there."

Mac wasn't looking at Vic, so he didn't have any warning before he suddenly felt Vic's hand on top of his, stilling his restless fingers. Mac looked at their hands, startled, and then looked up to meet Vic's eyes.

"I think I should," Vic said.

Mac wasn't following. But his heart was beating really fast, and it was hard to think about much—other than the rough, warm, feeling of Vic's palm pressing against the top of Mac's right hand. "Should what?" he said.

"Make that promise," Vic said.

Mac gave a quick, nervous grin. "I'm not sure what you're saying, Vic."

"Agh," Vic said, apparently to himself. "Fuck it." And then he tugged his chair over next to Mac's, leaned over, and kissed him.

Mac's eyes went wide with shock for a second, and then he closed them.

Vic was _kissing_ him.

Mac kissed him back, enthusiastically. Meanwhile, his mind raced over the conversation that they'd just had, trying to figure out why the hell this was happening.

Victor Mansfield, teeming with repressed sexual desire for Mac Ramsey ... apparently?

Well, it would be repressed, wouldn't it, considering it was Vic.

He didn't seem so repressed, now, though. He was making those noises again, those little throat-noises, desperate little gasps that could only make Mac think about sex. He had one hand buried in Mac's hair and the other pressed against his back, tugging him closer.

Mac squirmed a hand in between them and put it over Vic's crotch. Vic made one slightly outraged yelp but then just closed the hand in Mac's hair, pulling it a little so that Mac's eyes watered.

No matter; Mac could feel that Vic was hard as a rock.

Mac had Vic's belt undone in no time, and his fly unzipped. He paused for a few seconds, concentrating once more on the kisses, to give Vic time to process what was happening and tell him to stop, but Vic just kept going with the frantic kisses, plunging his tongue into Mac's mouth.

Under his jeans, Vic was wearing sensible white Y-fronts. Of course he was. It was easy for Mac's fingers to slip inside and ease Vic's cock out.

He heard and felt Vic gasp. A little shudder ran through Vic's body. But he still didn't tell Mac to stop.

Mac took a moment to appreciate the smooth, hot, silky feel of Vic's erect cock. He ran his fingers lightly up and down the length, and felt Vic quiver head-to-toe.

Then Mac moved quickly; he broke away from the kiss, pushed Vic's knees apart, and settled himself, kneeling, between Vic's thighs. He took a deep, appreciative breath, and then took the length of Vic's cock in his mouth.

"Oh my God," Vic was murmuring, trembling. "You were serious about the blowjob."

 _Of course I was,_ Mac would have replied, but he couldn't say anything with his mouth full of cock.

Vic buried his hands in Mac's hair. It would have been easy for him to pull Mac's head up, but he didn't, so Mac understood that he had permission to continue. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the rhythm, on the movement of his tongue.

This was either the worst mistake of his life, or the best.

Anyway, after this things were never going to be the same again with Vic, one way or another.

Mac kept the blowjob going until he felt Vic trembling and rocking in a new way; a moment later, he wasn't surprised to hear Vic gasp "I'm gonna come." Vic sort of fumbled at Mac's hair at that point, like he was feebly trying to push Mac away, and Mac's guess was that Vic was trying to give him the opportunity to pull back before he got a mouth full of spunk. But Mac was happy to swallow.

 _Very_ happy, actually. The feel and taste of Vic's semen spurting into Mac's mouth, along with Vic's strangled orgasmic yelps, triggered Mac's own orgasm. He came in his pants, shuddering quietly.

After, he allowed himself to rest his head against Vic's thigh for about the space of three contented breaths, before he sat back to meet Vic's eye and find out if he'd ruined everything.

Vic looked a bit hollow-eyed. "Um, wow," he said.

Mac hazarded a grin. "Does your hangover feel better now?"

Vic cleared his throat. "Mac, that was..." he trailed off, apparently unsure how to finish the sentence.

"Mind-blowingly awesome?" Mac suggested.

Vic gave a weak smile.

Well, he wasn't running screaming—that was a hopeful sign.

"Um," Vic said, sort of awkwardly, "What about you? I mean, would you like... I'm not sure if I could... but if you want..."

It took Mac a moment to follow Vic's halting, stumbling thought process, but then he realized with a warm glow of amazement: _Vic was offering to reciprocate._

That was sure as hell different from Michael. Different from the guys in the Tiger Balls' men's room, too.

Oh man, it was tempting.

But Vic was clearly making the offer out of politeness, rather than lust—which was so fucking _sweet_ —and Mac suspected that taking him up on it would be going too far, too fast.

"It's okay," he said. "I already came."

That got him a surprised eyebrow raise.

"I've gotta go shower again," Mac said. "And change. I've got a busy day ahead of me, actually. Um, I need to be at the Agency in about forty minutes. Then dance practice, _then_ working the door at the club."

"The Agency?" Vic repeated, clearly making an effort to get his brain back into gear. "What's up?"

"Oh, I called ahead, asked Nathan to meet me there. I got a lead on the case last night. I think I can figure out Ebony Stalking's secret identity."

"Hey, that's great," Vic said.

"Yeah. Um, what are your plans for the day?" Mac asked out of curiosity, but also out of concern; yesterday had been a rough day for Vic, undercover-wise.

Vic grimaced. "I think I'm gonna call in sick."

"You can do that?" Mac asked. "Racist biker gangs give sick days?"

Vic shrugged. "Hangover. I won't be the only one. There was a lot of liquor getting passed around last night."

Mac eyed Vic, wondering if he was feeling rougher than he looked. "You can stay here, if you need to. Have a nap..."

Vic shook his head. "No, I'm not _really_ feeling all that sick. I just need a quiet day, y'know?"

Mac nodded. "I think I get it. Um, meet back here tonight?"

Vic _had_ actually promised to keep spending the night with Mac—but that had been right before the kissing and the blowjob, and now Mac wasn't sure how badly unbalanced things might have become.

But—"Yeah," Vic said immediately, and Mac breathed a little easier.

"Er," Mac added, "Don't forget that I'm working the late shift again at the club. I won't be home until two-thirty in the morning."

Vic nodded thoughtfully. "I might go to bed before you get home. Would that be okay?"

Mac imagined that—coming home, finding Vic already in his bed, peacefully asleep.

It was probably not healthy for that image to fill Mac with such a warm, glowing rush of happiness. "Yeah," he said casually. "That'd be fine. Don't wait up."

* * *

At the Agency, Nathan was his usual sweaty, squirrelly self. Mac met him in the stacks.

"I got the files you asked for," Nathan said. "The Ontario Bar Association membership, going back through 1980."

"With photos?" Mac reminded him.

"Yes." Nathan thumped a cardboard banker's box down on the worktable. "That's the first of five."

"Oof," Mac said, sitting down. Now he regretted not calling Li Ann and Vic in to help; he'd thought it would be a smaller set of files. How many fucking lawyers were there in Ontario? "You're gonna help, right?" He pulled out the photo of Ebony Stalking that the Director had given him at the start of the case. "We're looking through those files for a man who could be this woman."

Nathan looked a little confused, but he didn't object.

Mac checked the time—he only had three hours before he needed to get to the club for the dance rehearsal with Li Ann and Ben—and started flipping through the files.

The good news was, it went pretty fast. They could easily discard everybody who wasn't a black man; that left a much smaller pile to look at in detail.

Finally, with about a quarter of an hour left before Mac needed to head off (if he was going to have time to run a needed errand or two on the way to the club), they found their guy. Comparing the pictures, and muttering about the ratio of eye-distance to lip-diameter, Nathan held up what he thought was a promising candidate; Mac, who had met Ebony in person, recognized her instantly.

"Yay," Mac said, leaning back and rolling his neck around to get the cricks out. "Can you give the Director the heads-up? I need to get going."

"All right," Nathan said. His stutter had gradually disappeared over the course of the three hours. Apparently, working together on a tedious task had made him more comfortable with Mac than he'd ever been before. "Do you need anything else?"

Mac thought about that one for a moment. Nathan knew a lot of random things. "Well," he said, "Do you know of any Buddhist temples in Toronto?"

Nathan blinked owlishly. "What kind?" he asked. "Indian? Chinese? Japanese? Tibetan? Vietnamese? Korean?"

"Um," Mac hesitated. The few times the godfather had taken them to a temple, it had been Chinese. And the Zen book he was reading now was Japanese. But Sifu Jinpa had been Tibetan. "Tibetan," he said.

"All right." Nathan stared into the middle distance for a moment, as though accessing internal files. Then he focused on Mac again. "Do you speak Tibetan?"

"Not a word," Mac admitted.

"Ah, too bad," Nathan said. "That rules out that one..." He thought for a moment longer, then scribbled an address down on a piece of paper. "Here you go. It's more of a meditation centre than a temple, strictly speaking, but the main teacher is a former lama from Tibet. He teaches Westerners. There's sitting meditation every Sunday morning from ten till noon, open to the public."

"Uh, wow," Mac said, taking the paper and folding it. "Thanks."

Nathan blinked at him again. "Are the Buddhists finally trying to penetrate the High Ruling Circle?"

Ah, _that_ was the Nathan that Mac was used to. "Sure," he said, standing up.

Nathan gave a satisfied nod. "It's about time."

* * *

It was a long day, after that. The rehearsal with Li Ann and Ben went well; they had their basic choreography and the structure of the piece all sorted out, and now they were just working on refining it and making it tighter, sharper.

Afterwards, it was eight hours on the door, shivering and checking IDs. At least there was no trouble, not counting a few drunken frat boys he had to chase off around midnight.

When Mac finally let himself into his apartment at 2:30 in the morning, he was aching and exhausted. He had the feeling that he was tired enough to sleep through the night dreamlessly, which was at least something to look forward to.

He was also nervous.

He couldn't remember _why_ he was nervous, until he walked into his bedroom and saw Vic tucked up under the covers. He felt himself instantly relax.

Mac quietly changed into his pyjamas. The bed was still pushed up against the wall, where Vic had put it several nights ago, and Vic had set himself on the outside. Mac felt a confusing mixture of gratitude and sheepishness; Vic was serious about stopping Mac from falling out of bed. The foot board was no higher than the mattress, so rather than crawling over Vic, Mac just climbed into the bed from the bottom.

As Mac eased himself under the blankets, Vic woke up a little; he rolled over and tucked his arms around Mac. "Jesus, you're like an ice cube," he murmured into Mac's ear.

"I was standing around outside for my whole shift," Mac said. He felt himself starting to shiver a little in reaction to Vic's warmth.

"C'mere," Vic murmured, and tightened his hold on Mac. "I'll warm you up. I've got you."

Mac let himself relax into Vic's arms. He felt warm, and safe.

He wasn't sure if this could last. But _fuck_ it felt good right now.


	15. Chapter 15

Mac woke up feeling fantastic. It took him several long, sleepy, happy moments to figure out all of the things that were wonderful about this morning:

1) He hadn't had any dreams last night.

2) He wasn't hung over.

3) He wasn't exhausted.

4) Vic was cuddling him.

5) Vic had promised to do this every night.

6) Vic was maybe, possibly, sort of his lover?

He turned around in Vic's arms, and kissed his nose.

Vic scrunched his face up, but didn't open his eyes.

Mac wondered how much he could get away with, here. They hadn't had a chance to talk since yesterday's blowjob. It would suck if Vic decided that that was going to be a one-off thing.

Mac reached his hand down in the warm space between them, and felt for Vic's cock. Vic was wearing his dorky plaid flannel pyjamas. They were a bit old, and worn; the fabric around the crotch was pretty thin. Mac easily located the bulge he was looking for. Vic's penis was soft, but it twitched immediately in reaction to Mac's touch.

Vic's eyelids fluttered, but didn't open. "What are you doing?" he asked, muzzily.

"Playing with you," Mac said. "Is it okay?"

"Mrmph," Vic said indistinctly, which didn't sound like a 'no.'

Mac kept teasing his fingers back and forth across the soft fabric, enjoying the feel of Vic's cock quickly expanding underneath.

Once Vic was fully hard, Mac slipped his hand under the elastic waistband and wrapped it directly around Vic's shaft. Vic gasped; his eyes slitted open. Mac started moving his hand up and down, keeping a firm grip.

"Jesus," Vic said, faintly.

Mac kept giving Vic the hand job until Vic's little gasps and twitches warned him that Vic was about to come; then he quickly scrunched himself down so that he could put his mouth over Vic's cock and finish him that way.

Afterwards, Vic lay there panting, staring at the ceiling. "Oh my God," he said after a moment.

"It was good, though, right?" Mac asked, moving back up so that he could nuzzle Vic's shoulder.

"Yes," Vic said. He tentatively reached over and trailed a couple of fingers through Mac's hair. Mac shivered deliciously. "Um, are you—" Vic went on, "I mean, did you—"

"I didn't come, no," Mac said, taking a stab at what Vic was hedging towards. "It's okay. I'll get myself off in the shower."

Mac allowed himself a brief flicker of a fantasy that Vic would scoff at that, and flip Mac over and fuck him properly, with his fingers at least—but no.

"Okay," Vic said with obvious relief. "I'll just, um, lie here. And collect myself."

So Mac went and had a shower, and he did get himself off—he climaxed within about fifteen seconds of stepping under the shower spray, he was that keyed up. And then he went back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped demurely around his waist, because he really wasn't sure exactly where Vic was putting their boundaries, now.

Vic was sitting up on the bed, looking a tiny bit shell-shocked.

"I need to get dressed," Mac said. "Is it okay if I do that in front of you?"

"Um," Vic said. He seemed to consider the question carefully. "Yes," he said finally, in a tone suggesting that he had intellectually decided that this was the correct answer.

Mac shrugged, and let the towel slip over his hips and puddle on the floor. He stood there for a moment, watching Vic's pupils dilate. Mac felt his lips quirk into a grin. "Do you like it?" he asked.

Vic cleared his throat. His neck was definitely flushed. "Yes," he said, and he sounded surprised. "You look ... nice."

"I know," Mac agreed cheerfully, and went to dig in the appropriate drawer for some clean underwear.

"I've never watched gay porn," Vic said, as though that were the next logical line in their conversation.

"Ah, okay," Mac said, stepping into a pair of black low-rise briefs.

"I've never thought of men's bodies as sexy," Vic went on.

Okay, Mac guessed Vic was processing some stuff. "And now?" he prompted, taking a moment to flex his pecs, smirking, before padding over to the closet to select a shirt. He wasn't working at the club today, so he didn't have to dress down to Mac-the-security-guard levels.

"I'm getting hard again," Vic confessed. He sounded adorably perplexed.

Mac selected a Chinese-collared shirt made of fine, cream-coloured cotton, and pulled it on. "I _told_ you I was irresistible," he reminded Vic.

Vic rewarded him with a startled laugh. "You're really not modest, are you?"

Mac grinned wide. "Why would I be?" He went back to the dresser to choose a pair of socks, and then went to sit on the bed to put them on. He hadn't buttoned the shirt yet; he hoped that Vic was enjoying the reverse strip-tease.

"No, you're right, you shouldn't be," Vic admitted. And then, to Mac's delight, he came over and kissed the side of Mac's neck.

"Mmm," Mac shuddered deliciously. Michael never did _that_. "But stop it, actually—I'm trying to get out the door."

"Where are you going?" Vic said. "Isn't the club closed today?"

"Yeah." Mac hesitated, considering lying. He wasn't sure _why_ he was hesitant—maybe just a fear that Vic would think he was weird, or flaky. But that was dumb. This was a bad time to start lying to Vic. "I'm going to a Buddhist meditation centre," he said. "There's a Sunday morning practice starting at ten."

"Oh." Vic sat back, obviously surprised. "Is that a thing that you do?"

"No, this is the first time," Mac confessed. "I'm a little nervous, actually." He got up and went back to his closet to pick out a suit.

"So why are you going?" Vic asked. A reasonable question.

Mac really wasn't sure he was ready to go into the nuances, but he tried to give Vic an answer that was true, at least in broad strokes. "I think I might make more progress with the meditation if I'm not trying to do it all on my own," he said.

Vic nodded slowly. "Makes sense," he said. "I guess."

"Do you want to come?" Mac asked, on impulse.

"Nah," Vic said. "But you have fun."

"Do you want to get together after?" Mac asked, fastening his pants. "I'll be done at noon."

"I think I need to be at the bike shop by then," Vic said, with a definite air of regret. "But tonight, maybe?"

"Meet you back here," Mac agreed happily, pulling on the suit jacket. "Whenever you get home." He turned to go.

"Wait," Vic said. "Did you take your pill this morning?"

Mac's brain skittered blankly on that one for a moment. "Huh?"

"The anti-depressant," Vic specified.

"Oh," Mac said. "Oops. No."

"What about yesterday?"

Mac shook his head.

"Any day this week?" Vic asked.

Mac gave a sheepish shrug. "It's been kind of a crazy week." He thought for a moment. "Crazy couple of weeks," he amended. He hadn't slept at his own apartment any night between Christmas and the start of the case; he'd just sort of forgotten about the pills. "Maybe I don't need them. I didn't have any nightmares last night."

"Well, that's great," Vic said, "But both you and the Director told me that the pills definitely help, so I think that you should go take one now."

"The Director?" Mac repeated, frowning. "When were you talking to the _Director_ about my pills?"

Vic looked slightly defensive. "I asked her about the nightmares," he said. "After that week at Li Ann's place." Mac could see the muscle in Vic's jaw working, the way it did when he was tense about something. "She told me that you have PTSD."

"Um, what?"

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," Vic clarified.

Mac thought he vaguely remembered the Director's pet shrink saying something about that back in the spring when she'd given him the pills. It hadn't seemed important. "I have nightmares," Mac said. "About things that happened. That's all. The things _happened_. It's not a disorder."

"Okay," Vic said, in a clear deciding-not-to-argue-about-this tone.

"I'm going now," Mac said. He was feeling irritable all of a sudden.

"Take the pill first," Vic insisted.

Mac felt like protesting some more, but he realized that he couldn't think of any reasonable-sounding arguments. Scowling, but not sure why he was feeling so pissed off, he went and took the fucking pill.

Then he left, slamming the door.

* * *

Much later in the day—around ten p.m.—Mac was sacked out on his couch watching a Jackie Chan movie when his cell phone rang.

"Hello?" he answered.

"It's me," said Vic. He was almost whispering. There were traffic noises in the background. "I'm not going to be able to come over tonight. Things are getting intense here with the Dog Pack."

Mac sat up immediately. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. But I want you to go over to Li Ann's place."

Mac looked around quickly, checking where he'd left his boots, his gun. "Is _she_ okay? What's happening?"

"She's fine. I assume. Nothing's happening. But I'm going to be out of touch and I need to know that you're safe."

Oh. There wasn't a crisis. Vic just didn't think that Mac could survive one night alone. "That's really not necessary," Mac said.

"I have to get off the phone," Vic said urgently. "Just _promise_ me that you'll go to Li Ann's."

Vic sounded desperate—and _he_ might be in danger, shit. "I promise," Mac said, to appease him.

*click*

Mac stared at the phone for a moment, and then flipped it closed and tucked it back into his jacket pocket.

He looked at the screen. Jackie Chan was doing some crazy moves, fighting ten guys with axes.

Mac had seen this one, like, a dozen times.

Still, he'd like to see the end.

He really didn't need to disturb Li Ann.

He'd be fine on his own.

He'd made it through twenty minutes of meditation at the centre this morning before it had gotten too overwhelming and he'd had to leave.

Anyway, he had the emergency back-up bottle of vodka that he'd hidden in the linen closet yesterday.

Wait, no, that wasn't a good thing.

If he got drunk again, Vic would probably be upset.

Or, what if Vic got in trouble and needed Mac's help? That would suck, if Vic needed saving and Mac was falling-down drunk at the time.

Well, he could stay here on his own and _not_ drink the vodka.

He blinked, and forced himself to do a moment of brutally honest self-assessment, to consider the probability of that.

So, maybe not.

Before he could change his mind again, he flipped his phone open to call Li Ann and let her know that he was coming over.

* * *

Li Ann opened her apartment door to his knock. She wasn't wearing her pyjamas yet, or maybe she'd changed back after he'd called.

"Come in," she said. "What's going on?"

Mac hadn't told her anything on the phone—he'd just said that he needed to come over, and he'd hung up before he could change his mind.

"Vic told me to come," he told her now.

He saw her taking in his overnight bag. "Is he coming?" she asked.

"No, he's stuck with the Dog Pack for the night, I guess." Mac put down his bag and started taking off his outdoor things. "He didn't want me to spend the night alone," he said to the floor.

Shit, this was embarrassing.

"Ah," she said. "Well. He's very protective."

Mac let out a sharp laugh. "Yeah. You can say that again."

"I'll make tea," she said.

Once they were seated at her dining table with the steaming teapot between them, Li Ann gave him a careful look. "Do you want to tell me anything more about why Vic sent you here?"

Mac shook his head. "I mean I guess you know. I've been having some trouble ... coping, since Michael—" He picked up his empty teacup, traced its rim with his finger. "Yeah, since Michael. And Vic's worried about the drinking."

Li Ann nodded, and picked up the teapot to pour. "You haven't been drinking tonight," she observed.

"No," Mac agreed. "Not since, um, Wednesday night."

"So, you're okay, really?" she said.

"Sure," Mac said. "Um. You should probably know—Vic and I have been fooling around a bit."

She raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"I gave him a couple of blowjobs. Or, maybe it was more like one blowjob, one hand job?"

Li Ann blinked a couple of times. "When?" she managed to ask.

"Well, this morning. And yesterday morning."

"All right," she said. And then, "Well, I can't say that I'm _entirely_ surprised. Not after Friday night." She thought about it a moment longer. "I am pretty surprised, though."

"Me too," Mac admitted. "Yesterday morning, when he let slip that he'd been getting hard-ons for me—I sort of couldn't believe it until I'd tested it."

One side of Li Ann's mouth quirked up. "Yes, that sounds like you," she said. "But—Mac? Try to be a little careful about this, okay?"

"I am!" Mac assured her quickly. "I'm being really gentle with him. I'm not pushing too fast—I'm giving him chances to back out. And I haven't asked him to do anything to me yet."

"Okay," she said slowly. "But I meant—Mac, try not to get too _attached_ , all right? He might just be experimenting."

"Ah," Mac said. He contemplated his teacup, ruefully. "Too late for that," he said.

Li Ann cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

Mac carefully pushed his teacup out of the way, folded his arms on the table in front of him, and laid his head face-down on his arms. "I'm in love with him," he mumbled into the table.

"Oh, Mac," he heard Li Ann sigh. And then he heard the scrape of her chair being pulled closer to his, and felt her fingers making contact with the back of his neck, and starting to stroke him gently. "Have you told him?"

Without lifting his head, he turned his face towards her. "God no," he said. "And you have to promise that you won't, either."

"I won't," she promised. She kept massaging the back of his neck. "I suppose there's no point in asking why, how, when?"

"Because he's _Vic_ ," Mac half-moaned. "And he's been doing his Vic-things around me, and touching me, and being nice to me—and I always thought he was hot, you know that—and he pulled me out of the soy mill..."

"I helped pull you out of the soy mill," Li Ann pointed out.

Mac gave a helpless little laugh. "Yeah, well I was _already_ in love with you."

Her fingers faltered for a moment, on his neck, and then resumed their gentle kneading. "Have you been okay," she asked, "with what we're doing now?"

He considered that. Ever since the night that Michael had tried to kill them, Mac had been accepting Li Ann's chaste kisses and occasional affectionate touches, and not pushing for anything more.

Mac would _love_ for there to be more, obviously. But his desire was tempered by the fact that she didn't want it. She had made her boundaries totally clear, even if they had been drawn in a confusingly unusual place.

"Yeah," he said, giving her his best attempt at a reassuring smile. "Dance practice has been really fun."

"It has," she agreed. "Actually, I have to say that I've really been enjoying this case. I wish it wasn't so hard on Vic, though."

"Yeah," Mac said, finally sitting back up. "He sure pulled the short straw."

They both gloomily contemplated Vic's situation for a minute—but there wasn't anything they could do about it now.

"Well," Li Ann said finally, "We should go to bed."

Mac glanced over at her living room; the futon was folded back up into couch form. "Could you get me the sheets and stuff for the futon?"

Li Ann glanced that way too, and then back at Mac. "You don't _have_ to sleep on the futon," she said, a bit hesitantly.

"Um," Mac said, looking at her carefully. "You know I have nightmares. I sort of wake up screaming sometimes."

"I know," Li Ann said. She bit her lip, and added, "I've always known. I could hear you through the walls sometimes, when we were kids."

She'd never said anything about that, but Mac wasn't surprised. He knew that Michael had heard him, sometimes. Mac's bedroom had been in the middle when they were younger, before they'd moved to the individual suites. "So..." he said, "You never wanted to spend the night with me, before. Are you sure you want to now?"

She looked thoughtful. "I was always afraid," she said slowly, "that your history was more similar to mine. And I didn't want to face that."

"Ah," Mac said. Well, that made sense. "No. Mine was ... _differently_ awful."

She gave a helpless little laugh at that, and leaned over to hug him. "We are so messed up," she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder. "At least we have each other."

"And Vic," Mac added.

" _You_ have Vic," she corrected him.

Did he? Thinking about it, Mac realized it was true. At least for now. The thought gave him a warm, happy glow—tinged with anxiety, because how long could it really last before Vic decided that he was straight after all, and/or got tired of putting up with Mac's shit?

"You could have had Vic," Mac pointed out. "Any regrets?"

She shook her head, not lifting it from Mac's shoulder. "He was good for me," she said contemplatively, "at the time. He really helped me to draw a line between the life that I have here and what I used to have, in Hong Kong. I felt very ... _safe_ , with him."

Mac put his hand on her hair, started to stroke it a little. "He does have that effect on people."

"But that kind of relationship wasn't what I wanted, in the end. It was too ... _involved_ , too stifling. I didn't want somebody in my space every night."

"You just invited me into your bed," Mac pointed out.

He could just see her smile out of the corner of his eye. "Once in a while is okay," she said. "And ... there was the sex thing, too. I guess I've realized that I really don't want to have sex anymore."

Mac kept stroking her hair. "Is that because of the brothel?" he asked, quietly.

"No," she said. And then, "I don't know. ... Maybe? But I don't think of it that way. It never _bothered_ me to have sex with you, or with Vic."

"Ah," Mac said. "Well, that's a relief."

"But I was never really _into_ it, you know? Somehow I just don't find the experience of sex very compelling."

"Is it possible that Vic and I just aren't very _good_?" Mac felt obliged to ask, for fairness' sake. "I mean, I'm mostly gay, as it turns out, and Vic—up to this point, I have no information about Vic as a lover."

She made a sort of snorfling noise into his shoulder. "Are you fishing for compliments, Mac?" she asked, laughter in her voice. "You gave me a lot of very nice orgasms, okay? Physically I have no complaints."

"Okay, good to know," Mac said. "Wow, I don't think we've ever _talked_ about sex like this before."

"I've been thinking about it a lot, lately," Li Ann confessed. "Trying to figure out why I don't want to have sex with you, even though I love you."

Mac's heart skipped a beat on the _I love you_. She'd said it before—just not very often. "Do you think _you_ might be gay?" he asked. Not that he'd ever suspected that about her, but it seemed like a reasonable thing to ask.

She shook her head. "I've never been attracted to women in that way," she said. "Well, except—"

"Except?" Mac prompted her, intrigued.

"You know I've been hanging out at the club, in drag," she said.

Mac nodded. He was a bit jealous; Friday and Saturday nights, while he'd been freezing his ass off checking IDs at the door and fending off bikers and frat boys, Li Ann had been inside, cementing her place in the scene. That, and looking for a chance to meet Ebony Stalking—though by sheer dumb luck, it was Mac who'd finally caught the clue and found out who she was.

"Well, I couldn't just stand by the wall for two whole nights in a row," Li Ann said. "So, I danced with a few women."

"And?" Mac said.

"Being in drag puts me in an interesting head space," Li Ann said. "I think ... I _did_ feel some attraction to the women I was dancing with. But it was very abstract, not really sexual."

"Hm," Mac said. "I can't really relate to that. When I feel attraction, it's always sexual."

"Interesting," Li Ann said. "I can't really relate to _that_." Then she lifted her head, stifling a yawn. "Come on," she said, "let's go to bed."

Mac bit his lip. "Look," he said, hesitantly, "Even if you're, um, _existentially_ comfortable with the idea of being there when I have a nightmare, you still might not be up for the actual experience. It could really suck."

She gazed at him carefully. "Mac, would you rather _not_ sleep with me?"

Mac thought about that.

He didn't love the idea of subjecting Li Ann to the mess that he tended to be when he woke up from one of those dreams.

But on the other hand, he liked the idea of waking up alone even less.

"I'd rather be with you," he admitted. "But it could be intense ... I can get pretty disoriented."

She tilted her head, looking at him. Placing a hand on his arm, she asked, "What does Vic do? When he's sleeping with you?"

"Well, um." Mac flushed. It felt weird to talk about it. "He wakes me up, if he notices that I'm dreaming. Or sometimes I wake up on my own. And then, um. He holds me. And tells me that I'm okay."

"That doesn't sound too hard," Li Ann said. "I can do that."

"You have to be careful, though," he remembered to warn her. "I kicked Vic pretty hard one time, before I realized where I was."

She raised an eyebrow. "Well, thanks for the heads-up. I think I can handle it."

* * *

In bed, Mac wasn't quite sure where to put his hands.

Then Li Ann rolled over and kissed him.

"What are you doing?" Mac murmured against her lips.

"Just kissing," she whispered. "Is that okay?"

"Can I touch you?" he asked.

"Um," she said. "Yes. But not between my legs."

"Okay," Mac agreed. And then, because Li Ann's rules were not intuitive to him, he asked, "What about breasts?" for clarification.

"That's okay," she breathed, and found his hand and pressed it against her chest.

Mac shuddered. He could feel her nipple, a firm little bump in the small, soft mound of her breast.

He was so fucking hard right now.

He eased halfway over onto his front, bending his upper knee so that his leg would form a barrier and stop Li Ann from coming into contact with his crotch.

This was torture, but it was also ridiculously hot.

Li Ann was kissing him gently, and running her fingers through his hair.

He let his thumb trace little circles around her nipple.

She made a little mewling noise, and kissed him harder.

"Still no sex feelings?" he asked.

"Nope," she said. "But I like this."

 _So_ confusing.

They kept it up for a while—ten minutes, maybe? Just kissing, really, and a little light fondling. Mac could hardly breathe, he was so turned on, but he made sure to keep his cock away from Li Ann, and to keep his hands well away from her pussy. At one point his hand slid maybe just a _little_ low on her belly, and she firmly moved it back up to her chest, which was a clear message.

Finally, Li Ann rolled away from him and said, contentedly, "That was nice. I think I'd like to sleep now."

"Okay," Mac said, _almost_ managing not to squeak. "I think I just need to go to the bathroom for a minute."

She rolled over on an elbow, and gave him an amused look. "To pee, or to get off?"

"The second one," Mac admitted. Definitely squeaking.

"You can do that here, if you want," she said. "Just—use tissues. Don't make a mess."

"Okay," Mac managed to say, in a bit of a strangled gasp. He felt Li Ann pressing a couple of tissues into his hand, and then he really wasn't up for any more coherent thoughts. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the pillow, and stroked himself quickly. Fu..uu..uck.

"Good," Li Ann said mildly, after a moment. "That was very tidy."

"You are so weird," Mac breathed. He tucked his softening cock away, and tossed the tissues into the wastebasket. 

Li Ann snuggled up to his side. "Good night," she said.

"Good night." Mac felt loose-limbed and content. Whatever was happening with Li Ann might be weird, but it was still pretty nice.

He had a good feeling about tonight. Maybe he wouldn't dream.

* * *

No such luck.

* * *

He was gasping, and choking, and only dimly aware of someone—Li Ann? what was she doing here?—grabbing his elbow and saying "Mac! Mac! Wake up!"—but Michael wouldn't let go, and Mac was thrashing, trying to free himself, and Li Ann was saying "Ow! Damn it, Mac!" but Michael was hurting him, and Mac was begging him to stop but he wouldn't, and—how had Li Ann gotten in here?—Li Ann was hugging him, and Mac was shaking and crying, and Michael seemed to be gone.

Michael was gone.

Michael was dead.

Mac was in Li Ann's room.

Li Ann was holding him, and he couldn't stop crying, but a corner of his mind was dispassionately watching him now and warning him that this was bad, it was very bad that he'd had one of the Michael dreams around Li Ann.

If it had been Vic here with him, Vic wouldn't have picked up on the nuances. But Li Ann's mother tongue was Cantonese.

If Mac could just stop shaking, just stop sobbing, he could figure out a way to reassure her.

Only he could still feel Michael's fingers around his throat. Michael pushing himself inside of Mac, ripping him.

Mac couldn't stop crying.

He didn't want to hurt Li Ann, but he had to lean on her, had to curl up against her, because her familiar smell and her wiry strength were his anchors; she would stop him from falling back into Michael's arms.

It took Mac a long time to stop shaking.

Eventually, he was breathing slowly, and he was definitely in Li Ann's bedroom, in Toronto.

"Sorry," he said, hoarsely.

"You didn't hit me very hard," she said. She sounded a little numb, but her arms were still around him.

Oops, he didn't even remember hitting her.

He cleared his throat. "I might have said some things."

She took a shaky breath. "Earlier tonight, when I said that I had been afraid that your history was more similar to mine..."

"No," Mac said quickly. "It's not like that. It was just Michael."

"Michael," she repeated, breathing it like a curse.

Mac felt himself shudder again, just once, and Li Ann's arms tightened around him.

"Michael raped you," she said, in a low, dangerous voice.

"No. Shit. He just—sometimes he made me have sex when I didn't want to. And it hurt."

"Mac, that's rape."

Mac squeezed his eyes shut. He could still feel Michael's fingers around his throat. "Are you sure? He said it wasn't."

Li Ann growled. That was a weird noise, coming from her. Her arms squeezed Mac sort of uncomfortably tightly for a moment, before relaxing again.

"Have you talked to Vic about this?" she asked. Her voice sounded tight, now; the growl was still just under the edge of it.

"No," Mac said.

"You need to," she said. "No, never mind. I'm going to. Tomorrow."

"Shit, no," Mac said, curling a little tighter. "He knows I have nightmares. He doesn't need to know what they're all _about_."

"I think he needs to know this one," she said.

" _Why_?" Mac really wished they could just stop talking about it, like, _now_.

"Because he's starting to have sex with you."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Li Ann let out a sharp bark of a laugh. "Mac? We had some slightly erotic cuddles, and then you woke up screaming and you spent half an hour shaking and crying."

Half an hour? Had it been that long? It had been a timeless blur, for Mac. "I don't think that's related," Mac said, sort of defensively. "I _like_ having sex. I've had a lot of sex lately."

"You have a lot of nightmares, too," Li Ann pointed out. "Some of the guys you brought to breakfast asked us about them, you know."

" _You_ didn't tell Vic," Mac pointed out. "About the brothel."

He felt her freeze, and he _knew_ he shouldn't have said that, shit. But he wanted her to _stop talking_ about this.

Then Li Ann was breathing again. "Maybe I should have," she said, slowly. "Maybe it was a mistake, not to. I didn't want to think about it ... but maybe if Vic had known, some things would have gone differently. Better. Our relationship still would have ended, though. I told you earlier, I don't think that my childhood experiences explain the way I feel about relationships." She took a breath. "But—please don't take this the wrong way, Mac, but I'm starting to think that you are _way_ more fucked up than I am."

"It's not a contest," Mac said, faintly.

"I know," she said. "I'm just saying—I have some very unpleasant memories. But they don't come flooding back to me in the middle of the night like this."

Mac leaned away from her, and tucked his arms over his head. "I don't want Vic to see me like that."

"As somebody that Michael hurt?" Li Ann asked. "He already knows that. Michael was a monster, we all know that. Vic was there right after Michael tried to kill you."

"It's different," Mac said, muffled by his knees. "With sex."

"I know." Li Ann squeezed his shoulder. "But I also know Vic—even better than you do—and he is _not_ going to think any less of you, okay?" She paused. "Would you rather talk to Vic about this yourself?"

Mac shook his head.

"Okay," Li Ann said, firmly. "Then I'll do it." She uncurled her legs, and stretched. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?"

Mac shuddered, and shook his head again. "Not tonight."

Li Ann stood up. "Then I'll make tea. Would you like to play Go? I'll spot you three stones."

Mac forced himself to take a deep breath, and eased himself off the bed. "You only need to spot me two stones."

Li Ann ruffled his hair. "I know, but you had a bad dream and I feel sorry for you." 

Startled by her teasing, Mac surprised himself by laughing.

Li Ann grinned, and hugged him. "It's gonna be okay," she whispered.

"I love you," he whispered back.

"I know."


	16. Chapter 16

Vic was the last one to arrive at the briefing room for the Monday morning check-in. He was relieved to see Mac sitting there with Li Ann, safe and sound.

They looked pretty relieved when they saw him, too. He would've called ahead first to reassure them if there'd been time, but he'd really only gotten away from the Dog Pack about forty-five minutes ago.

The chair they'd left empty for him was at the end, next to Mac. Vic took it, giving Mac a quick searching look as he sat down. Actually Mac looked a little haggard—not hung-over, but there were shadows under his eyes. "Did you go to Li Ann's?" Vic whispered quickly, hearing the Director's office door opening up above, and the tap of her stilettos.

Mac nodded.

"Good morning!" the Director greeted them. With another week of recovery behind her, she was looking almost her usual self. Her red pants suit was cut tight around her belly and hips, and her neckline plunged. "So, you've been on this case for a week. Time to take stock. First of all—good detective work, Mr. Ramsey. Now that we know Ebony Stalking's legal name, Jackie and Dobrinsky are keeping watch over her, alternating with Murphy and Camier. If all goes well, she'll never even know that they were there. If all doesn't go well—well. She'll be glad that they were, I suppose."

Vic cleared his throat. "Actually," he said, "She's not going to be attacked at home."

"Oh?" The Director raised an eyebrow. "Some leads from the Dog Pack? Do tell."

"Well, I found out 3-Jay's plan," Vic said. "He's going to send a shooter to the fundraiser." He winced. "I'm the shooter."

The Director sat back, looking bemused.

Li Ann and Mac stared at him.

Mac was the first to speak. "Wait, that's _good_ , right? This case just got _easy_! All Vic has to do is show up and not kill anybody."

"That doesn't solve the problem, though," Li Ann pointed out. "If Vic fails him, 3-Jay will just come up with a new plan."

"Well, can't we arrest him now?" Mac asked. "I mean, that's conspiracy to commit murder. That's a thing, right? An illegal thing?"

Vic shook his head. "3-Jay's been really careful. Even if I'd been wearing a wire—which I sure wasn't—he never said anything actionable. It was all 'oh hey somebody sure oughta,' and 'Vic, you know how to shoot, you could really solve a lot of problems real fast,'—all kinds of indirect crap. When I asked him flat-out, 'Do you want me to shoot Ebony Stalking at the Two-Ring Circus?' he was all, 'Whoa whoa, man, I could never say something like that ... but a lot of people would sure think you were a hero if you did.'"

"Shit," Mac sat up straighter, looking worried. "He suspects you're a plant?"

"No," Vic said. "He just wants to make sure that if I survive getting arrested after the fundraiser, I won't be able to say anything to the cops that would give them cause to arrest him."

Mac turned to the Director. "Can't we take him out _anyway_? We're shadowy government agents, not police."

"Well." The Director sat down in the chair on the other side of the table; she tapped her cheek, looking thoughtful. "It's tempting," she admitted after a moment. "But even my extra-legal powers are ... limited. I'd really be sticking my neck out if I made such a move without the backing of the Council. And so far, this case has been more of a pet project of mine."

Li Ann looked a little suspicious. "What do you mean by that?"

"To be honest," the Director said—and of course she was constitutionally incapable of pronouncing the h-word without a bit of a smirk—"the Council is a conservative bunch of old fuddy-duddies. How worked up do you suppose they'd be about some vague threats against a queer, black, gender non-conforming, gay-rights activist?"

"Wait a second," Vic said. "Are you telling us that this case isn't _official_?"

The Director pushed her chair into a little half-spin, back and forth. "It is possible that you're all still on vacation," she said. "Technically. On the books. Don't worry, you _are_ getting paid."

"Can you _do_ that?" Vic asked.

The Director rolled her eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you? I can do whatever I want. Although in this case, it's true, I have just put myself out on a limb. I suppose you could go over my head. Do you want to drop the case?"

"No!" Li Ann and Mac both said, quickly and simultaneously.

"No," Vic chimed in, just a little later and more reluctantly. "3-Jay's dangerous. We have to do _something_ about him."

"Holding pattern, then," the Director said. "If you bring me something I can go to the Council with—something tangible, illegal actions against law-abiding citizens—maybe I can get something done. Stay on 3-Jay, Vic; see what his moves are. He must have had some other plan before you fell into his lap—I put you on this case _because_ of his threats against Ebony Stalking."

"I think T-Rex was the original plan," Vic said. "But 3-Jay liked the idea of sacrificing a newbie instead of his friend. Plus I'm a much better shot."

The Director nodded. "Mac, you stay on as security, just in case things go south. Li Ann—actually you don't need to stay undercover any longer. We found out who Ebony is; your mission is accomplished."

Li Ann looked startled, and distressed. "I can't back out _now_ ," she said. "What about my dance in the fundraiser?"

"That's a _hobby_ ," the Director said. "Not a _mission_."

"I need her there," Mac said quickly. "As backup."

The Director made a wry expression. "Li Ann, do you _want_ to stay undercover?"

Li Ann nodded.

The Director waved her fingers. "Oh well, go ahead then. It's your vacation time, anyway."

Li Ann sat back, looking relieved.

"I think that's everything," the Director said. "Oh, wait, all this talk of shooting has reminded me—I checked the logs, and some of you are behind on your firearms proficiency maintenance. Vic, you still owe two hours for last month; Mac, you owe three. Li Ann's fine. Boys, you can get caught up now, before you go."

"But this is my day _off_ ," Mac said, his tone edging on a whine.

"It's your day off from your cover job," the Director pointed out. "You still have to do your real job. Undercover's a bitch, isn't it?"

The Director dismissed them.

Mac headed down towards the Agency's firing range, which was in sub-basement six. Vic was on his heels, but Li Ann stopped him with a hand at his elbow. "Do you have a second?"

"Sure," Vic said, turning. "What's up?"

"You're going to finish at the range before Mac," she said. "Would you have time to come over to my place for a little while? I need to talk to you."

"Okay," Vic said, feeling concerned. "About what?"

"About Mac," she said with a little sigh. "Just let yourself in with your key, I might be napping."

"All right," Vic said. "Um, rough night?"

Li Ann tucked her hair back with a wry expression. "You could say that." Her eyes were shadowed, too, Vic noticed.

"Okay," Vic said. "It'll be about noon when I get there. How about I bring some take-out for lunch?"

She gave him a grateful smile. "Thanks," she said.

* * *

Down at the firing range, Mac already had his safety glasses and ear protectors on, and he was standing in a booth with a selection of Agency-issue guns. Vic donned his own equipment and took the next booth over.

It occurred to Vic, as he practised, that he should have claimed the hours at the range last week with 3-Jay against his total.

Oh well, maybe it was fair that they didn't count; he'd been holding back on everything but the handgun.

When he pressed the button to pull his paper target in, he was pleased to see that he'd kept everything tight in the bullseye. _Still got it._ He glanced over at Mac's target, out of habitual competitive impulse. Normally Mac was just as good as Vic; today he was a tiny bit more scattered.

After about forty minutes, Vic signalled that he'd like to take a break. Mac gave him a thumbs-up, secured his weapons, and met Vic out back of the booths.

"Hey," Vic said, rolling his shoulder. "How are you doing?"

"Little sore," Mac admitted. "The Director's right, I need to keep up the training."

Vic had a sudden impulse. "Want a shoulder rub?" he offered. They were alone down here, after all.

Mac's eyes widened, and then he grinned. "That sounds great!"

Vic got behind Mac, and started digging his thumbs into the muscles around his shoulder blades. Mac felt pretty knotted-up, actually. Vic was rewarded with a series of appreciative groans as he worked the knots loose.

It was nice, touching Mac.

After a couple of minutes, Vic lowered his hands. "Better?"

"Much," Mac said, easing his arms back and forth. "Thanks."

Vic nodded, and they headed back to the booths. "Hey Mac," he said, before they stepped in, "Does this stuff ever bother you?"

"Huh?" Mac said.

Vic gave the room a quick scan; they were still alone. "Li Ann told me you lost your lunch the first time you ever held a gun," he said, pitching his voice lower. "Does it still bother you?"

Mac froze, and Vic cursed himself. He'd been thinking about the tension in Mac's shoulders; he'd wanted to check if he was okay. It occurred to him slightly too late that Mac probably did _not_ want to be bringing up those memories in the middle of the work day.

But Mac shook himself, and gave a weak laugh. "That wasn't the first time I held a gun, Vic," he said. "It was just the first time after—" he took a deep breath, swallowed, and pushed out the rest of the sentence: "after my Mother was shot."

Vic grabbed Mac's hand and squeezed it. Mac was looking pale, and tight, and Vic felt like an asshole.

Except ... Mac was pale, but he wasn't collapsing. He wasn't breaking down. Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe Mac could get used to making references to his history without letting them swallow him whole. Quit with the deep dark secrets; bring it all out into the daylight. "But it got easier?" Vic said. "Li Ann said you were okay after the first time."

Mac grimaced. "Michael made sure of that."

"Huh?" Vic's heartbeat automatically sped up at the mention of Michael's name.

"He took me out to some abandoned place where we could shoot. Just the two of us. He put a gun in my hand, made me shoot. I squeezed off maybe two shots before I had to put it down and throw up."

"Did he know?" Vic asked. "About your mother?"

Mac nodded. "We didn't talk about it that day, but he knew." Mac swallowed, and went on. "He got me to pick up the gun again. My hands were shaking. He got behind me, put his arms around me and his hands over mine, to steady me."

"And then you could do it?" Vic asked.

Mac shook his head. "I fell down. I threw up again. I was crying."

Vic stiffened, thinking about what he knew about Michael. "Did he hit you?" he asked.

But Mac shook his head again. "Not that night. He just told me that I had to pick the gun up again. And he kept at me until I could do it—until I could stand there and just fire shot after shot. It took half the night. When he was satisfied with me, I remember, he told me that the gun was _power_ , and I needed to claim that power ... otherwise people would keep hurting me." He sort of shook himself, and let go of Vic's hand. "For Michael," he added lightly, "that was what passed for nurturing."

Vic cleared his throat. "Um. Shit. I'm sorry I brought all that up. Do you want to call it quits? You can always make up your hours later."

Mac shook his head one more time, and gave Vic a bleak smile. "No. I'm fine. That was Michael's gift to me. Remember that when you talk to Li Ann later."

That was weird, but Mac refused to expand upon it; he just put his safety gear on, and went back into his booth.

* * *

Vic was still thinking about Michael when he let himself into Li Ann's apartment an hour and a half later, with a couple of take-out chicken salads in a plastic bag.

Li Ann wasn't asleep when he let himself in, but by the pillow-creases on her right cheek Vic could tell that she'd just gotten up. Vic put the chicken salad containers on her dining table, and she fetched plates and forks.

He waited until they'd each had a few bites before he asked, "So, what was it that you wanted to talk about?"

She sat back, looking pensive. "Vic..." she said, "What are your intentions towards Mac?"

"Um," Vic said, feeling blindsided.

She took another bite of salad and chewed, watching him patiently.

Vic realized that he did not have a clear idea of the answer to that question. Or, for that matter, any compelling sense that he _should_ have an answer, yet. But anyway, _if_ this was a conversation that he needed to have, shouldn't he be having it with _Mac_? "Why do you ask?" he turned it back on her.

"Mac told me last night that your relationship has become sexual."

It was a good thing that Vic had just swallowed his piece of chicken; otherwise he probably would have choked. "He _said_ that? To you?"

Li Ann gave her head a quick, impatient shake. "Not in those words. He said that you were 'fooling around.' That he'd given you a couple of blowjobs."

Vic felt a flush rising up his neck. "You two have really started telling each other everything," he said, faintly.

"I want to hear, _from you_ , what you think you're doing with Mac," Li Ann said. She looked ... stern.

Vic suppressed an impulse to squirm under her gaze. What the hell was going on here? "Are you _disapproving_ of me?" he asked. "Um, shit. I know that the two of you have a thing. But I thought that you didn't mind if he had—" _sex with other people_ was the end of that sentence, but Vic didn't think that what he'd done so far with Mac qualified as _sex_. And _other relationships_ was almost as bad, as a sentence-ender. He gave up and backed up to the beginning. "He slept with all those men over the holidays, and you didn't mind."

Her expression softened a little. "I'm not disapproving, Vic. And I'm not jealous, either. I'm just trying to figure out..." she bit her lip, obviously having her own trouble with sentence-endings. "I want to know what kind of commitments you're prepared to make," she said finally.

"Er, wow," Vic said. "I really think that that's a conversation I should have first with Mac."

She shook her head. "I know it must seem like I'm overreaching. But I really have an urgent reason for asking you this, Vic. Some things came up last night."

Okay. She seemed very serious, and he trusted her. Vic tried to think of how to answer her questions.

"I _did_ make a commitment," he realized. "I promised Mac that I'd spend every night with him."

She looked a little surprised. "That's quite a promise."

Vic palmed his forehead, wincing. "Yeah, and I broke it on the second night."

"Last night?" Li Ann asked. To Vic's nod, she said, "Well, you were working. And that's why you sent him to me?"

Vic nodded again.

"Why did you promise him that?" Li Ann said.

Vic hesitated. He was reluctant to give voice to all of the worries that he'd had about Mac, lately. He didn't think that Mac would appreciate Vic laying bare his very intimate problems—and if Vic told Li Ann, he had to assume that she'd tell Mac at some point; they _did_ seem to be telling each other everything now.

But on the other hand, Vic _had_ used Li Ann as backup last night. And something had happened, obviously, though Vic still had no idea what.

"I don't think he's safe," Vic said. "On his own."

Li Ann nodded slowly. "There are other ways of dealing with that," she pointed out. "You could have told the Director. She could have brought him in—made him stay at the Agency, supervised."

Vic shook his head, appalled. "Would _you_ have done that? That would be awful. He'd be miserable."

"No, I wouldn't have," Li Ann said. "But it would be a reasonable thing for a co-worker to do."

"What? Come on, Li Ann, we're more than _co-workers_. Jesus! I _care_ about him."

She sat back, with a little sigh. "There you go. Was that so hard to say?"

Vic stared at her. "Was that a _test_?"

She looked thoughtful. "Yes, I suppose it was. Vic, you've been very evasive about your feelings for Mac."

"My, um, feelings," he repeated. And felt himself blushing again. "Did _Mac_ ask you to ask me that?"

"No," she said. "He didn't want me to talk to you, but I told him that I was going to."

Right, Vic remembered—Mac had known that Vic was going to see Li Ann. He'd said something weird at the firing range; it hadn't made sense at the time. "Is this something about Michael?" Vic asked.

Li Ann cocked her head. " _Did_ Mac say something to you earlier?"

"I'm not sure," Vic said. Well, Mac had told a whole story about Michael, but Vic couldn't see how it had anything to do with Li Ann's current need to quiz Vic on the status of his relationship with Mac.

 _Oh_. His relationship with Mac. That was a thing that he had now, wasn't it?

Li Ann looked a bit puzzled. Okay, that hadn't been very informative.

Vic took a deep breath and went back to her real question, because she was getting at something here, and if Michael was involved, it was probably something bad. "You know what? _Yes_ , Li Ann, I care about Mac. I don't really understand what's happening between us, yet, but I think ... that I've started to care a lot." He took a deep breath. Jesus, that had been hard to say. "So what is it that you brought me here to talk about?"

Li Ann nodded slowly. "I invited Mac to sleep with me last night," she said. "In my bed, I mean."

"Ah," Vic said. He hadn't quite expected that. "I thought that the two of you never did that."

"Well, last night was the first time." She looked rueful, suddenly. "I got a lot more than I bargained for."

"Nightmare?" Vic asked, feeling like a veteran talking to a new recruit.

She nodded, and took a deep breath. She folded her hands on the table in front of her, looked at them, and then visibly forced her eyes back up to meet Vic's. "He had a dream about Michael raping him."

 _Oh,_ fuck.

It took Vic a moment to notice that his fingernails were digging into the table's edge. A slight red haze had overtaken his field of vision, briefly, but it was fading away.

_Fuck Michael fucking Tang._

There was nothing that Vic could do to him. Michael was dead. Li Ann had killed him.

"Are you okay?" was the first thing that he managed to say. Because as much as Vic wanted to somehow reach out to Mac _right now_ and fix things, it was Li Ann who was sitting in front of him, and she was also a survivor of sexual abuse.

She nodded, though she definitely looked pale. "It was hard," she said, "sitting with him. He was inconsolable; he was totally out of it for at least half an hour. I just held him. I wasn't sure that I would be able to, but I discovered that I was stronger than I realized."

Vic had no idea what to say. "Did you talk, afterwards?"

"Only a little. I'd picked up on the general nature of the dream from what he'd said while he was still half asleep, and once he was coherent he took pains to assure me that it was 'just Michael'. That's how he put it." She frowned, remembering. "He didn't like me using the word 'rape'. But that's clearly what it was, Vic."

Vic tried to take a few calming breaths. Focus; find out the rest of what Li Ann knew, try to figure out what to do about it later. "I take it this isn't something that you knew about, before?"

She shook her head. "Absolutely not. Although," she added, looking bleak, "it fits."

"Did it seem as though it was something that happened just once?" Vic asked. Not that that would make it much better.

But she shook her head again. "The way he put it ... 'sometimes' Michael would force himself on him. It was an ongoing thing."

"Fuck," Vic said, with feeling.

"I think," Li Ann added, in a low voice, "that the nightmare might have been triggered by what Mac and I were doing before we went to sleep."

Vic stared at her. "What were you doing?"

"Not very much," Li Ann said, looking embarrassed. "Kissing, touching each other. Not actually sexually. But then at the end, I let him masturbate next to me."

"Um, wow," Vic said.

"But you see why I needed to tell you about this?" Li Ann said. "If _you're_ starting to have a sexual relationship with Mac..."

Vic nodded. Shit. He could see her point. "It might not have been cause-and-effect, though," he pointed out. "He has a lot of nightmares."

"About Michael?" she said.

Vic shrugged. "I don't know. He never tells me what they're about."

"Anyway," Li Ann said, "whether the nightmare was related to what we did or not, you needed to know. So that you could be careful."

"Yeah," Vic agreed, although he had no idea _what_ he was supposed to do with this information. "And you, um, told Mac that we'd be having this conversation?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

"Oh, shit," Vic suddenly remembered. "The story he told me about Michael, this afternoon. He told me how Michael got him over his block about holding a gun. He called it _Michael's gift_ to him. He told me to remember it when I talked to you." Vic stopped, confused and appalled. "What the hell did he mean by that?"

Li Ann looked thoughtful. "I think that he wanted to express that his relationship with Michael was complicated."

"Complicated?! _Fuck_ that."

Li Ann winced; with an effort, Vic dropped his voice back down to conversational tones.

"Michael was an abusive son-of-a-bitch," Vic went on. "There's nothing _complicated_ about the fact that he played head games."

"Okay," Li Ann said, "I don't disagree. But you're still going to have to be careful with Mac."

" _Fuck_ ," Vic said again, for good measure.

Li Ann stood up, walked over in back of his chair, and gave him a hug from behind. "I am really glad that you're here, Vic," she said, resting her chin on his head.

"Um, yeah," Vic said, feeling pretty overwhelmed. "Me too."

* * *

Vic really wanted to go check on Mac, after that conversation, but he got a call on his cell from 3-Jay just as he was leaving Li Ann's place.

In the end he couldn't avoid spending a few hours with the Dog Pack. He got away in the early evening, and rode home with a feeling like his skin was crawling.

He left the bike parked by his own apartment and then took public transit over to Mac's. He let himself into Mac's building with his key, and then knocked at the apartment door. There was no response, and Vic could hear music thudding softly through the door. Remembering that the noise level inside would be much higher, Vic didn't try knocking again, but instead unlocked it with the key, and then eased it open carefully, yelling "It's me, Vic! Don't shoot!"

Mac was over in his home gym, lifting weights. His grey sleeveless-T was soaked with sweat, and his hair clung to his head in damp ringlets.

Vic turned the stereo down to a conversation-facilitating level, and went over to Mac. "Hi," he said.

"Hey," Mac grunted, continuing his set of pull-downs.

"Are you about done, there?" Vic asked.

He had a sudden flashback to the night last week when he'd found Mac frantically working the speed bag, without having taken the time to put on gloves first. With that memory in mind, Vic took a discreet glance at Mac's hands, where they were gripping the pull-down bar; there were no new injuries, and the bruises on Mac's knuckles had just about faded away. So, okay, that was good.

"Sure, I can stop now," Mac said. He eased the weights down until they clinked against the bottom, and then he stood up, stretching.

"You're probably gonna want a shower," Vic observed. Mac was pretty much drenched with sweat.

Mac grinned. "Yeah. Make yourself comfortable. There's a six-pack in the fridge."

Vic was nervous, and a cold beer sounded good. He was lounging on Mac's couch with a half-empty Tsingtao in his hand before he remembered that Mac had been displaying a problematic relationship with alcohol, lately, and maybe Vic should've had a glass of water instead.

He considered the beer.

Well. Two grown men sharing a six-pack; it's not like they were going to get drunk, even if they drank the whole thing. Probably better to stick to just one, though.

Vic put the half-empty bottle on the coffee table, figuring he'd pick it up again and nurse it when Mac came in.

It was only a couple of minutes before Mac came into the living room—making a stop at the kitchen first, to pick up a beer of his own.

Mac had put on a white dress shirt and crisp grey slacks—which counted as comfy lounge-wear for Mac, apparently, though on Vic it would've been dress-up day at the office. Incongruously, though, Mac's feet were bare.

Mac plopped himself on the couch—sideways, with his back against the arm, and his bare feet propped against Vic's thigh. "Cheers," he said, holding up his beer for Vic to chink.

They took a drink together, and Vic tried to figure out what the hell he wanted to say. How had he gotten this far without a plan?

Mac preempted him, though, by saying, "So Li Ann talked to you?"

"Yes," Vic said, cautiously.

"Okay," Mac said. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Er," Vic said. "I think that we should."

Mac shook his head, and took a drink. Then he set the bottle down on the coffee table and said, "Not tonight, okay? Tonight ... Vic, would you kiss me again?"

Mac sounded so tentative all of a sudden. Vic wasn't sure what to do about that; he was getting used to Mac's full-steam-ahead sexual energy. "Um, we can kiss," he agreed.

It would probably be good to try some more kissing, actually. For the practice.

He started to lean over towards Mac—who was watching him, oddly wide-eyed and vulnerable—but he stopped half-way. " _Just_ kissing," Vic said. "Keep your hands off my bits."

Mac made a faint moue of protest. "But you _like_ my hands on your bits."

"Yes," Vic admitted. "But that changes the focus. Just ... let me kiss you."

Mac closed his eyes and took a shuddery breath, as though Vic had just said something unspeakably erotic.

So, okay. Vic kissed Mac.

And actually, as his lips touched Mac's, Vic realized something specific: Mac hadn't asked 'can we kiss?'; he'd asked 'would you kiss me?'. And that surprising, whole-body reaction—that had followed the moment when Vic said 'let me kiss you.'

Maybe there was something there.

He kissed Mac on the lips first, since that's where Vic's lips already were. Mac's lips parted slightly, in response, but they stayed loose, receptive.

Kissing Mac—kissing a man—was still a very new experience for Vic. Vic's heart was racing like crazy, and he was super-conscious of the masculinity of it, Mac's rough 7 p.m. stubble scraping the sensitive edges of Vic's lips.

He'd never imagined that this was something that he could like, but now that he was here, doing it, he realized that it was amazing.

Cautiously, Vic pulled away from Mac's lips. And then before Mac had time to make more than a slight disappointed whimper, Vic kissed his cheek. Mac inhaled quickly, his lips twitching up in a little smile. He didn't open his eyes. Vic trailed a series of light kisses around Mac's cheek, up to the corner of his eye, down the side of his neck.

Mac moaned, in a very happy way.

Vic moved his attention back up to Mac's lips, but his fingers found the top button of Mac's shirt.

"Is this okay?" he whispered, undoing the first button.

"You're the one who said _just kissing_ ," Mac reminded him, breathily.

"It's still just kissing," Vic said. "I'm going to kiss your body."

Slowly, he undid all of the buttons, and then eased Mac's shirt off over his shoulders. Then he gently pressed Mac's body down, until Mac was lying on the couch and Vic was crouching over him, running kisses up and down his belly.

Vic had thought he was familiar with Mac's belly—they did get changed together at the Agency sometimes, they had all along—but this was a newly intimate experience of it. Mac's abdominal muscles were sleek and hard under his skin. The hair on his upper chest was dense—kissing it was a fuzzy experience. Mac's nipples were hard little nubs hiding in the hair, and Vic kissed them too, but didn't suck on them—he was trying to be careful not to let this experience escalate into something more sexual.

Vic was still pretty nervous about the whole sex thing, and after this afternoon's conversation with Li Ann, he was also anxious about going any further with Mac before they'd had a chance to talk properly.

This, though—this seemed okay.

Mac was making a lot of gratifyingly happy noises. A lot of little murmurs and twitches. He was also being surprisingly obedient and passive.

Vic trailed some kisses up around Mac's shoulder, down his arm, to the tips of his fingers.

Mac's fingers were calloused. From the weights, probably. He worked out more than Vic did. Vic _should_ work out more, he knew. Might save his life someday.

Kisses around the belly again. Mac's belly button was cute, concave. There was a little trail of hair going from it down to the top of Mac's pants, and Vic kissed the top of the trail but didn't follow it any further. Nevertheless, he felt Mac's belly hop in a little gasp.

Kisses back up the side of Mac's torso, along his ribs. Mac had surprisingly few scars, considering the dangerous life that he'd lived, but there was one here—a faint white line between the bottom two ribs on the left. From a knife, maybe? Vic didn't know anything about it—it must have been long before the Agency. Vic kissed the scar, and hoped that whatever had happened, it hadn't been serious, hadn't hurt too badly.

Kisses up and around again, to the lips, and this time Vic noticed that Mac's lips stayed limp instead of answering Vic's nibbles.

He backed away a bit, and noticed how even Mac's breathing had become.

He nudged Mac's shoulder. "Uh, Mac? Are you _asleep_?"

Mac's eyes popped open, and he sat up abruptly. "What? No!"

Vic gave him a wry look. "Yes you were. I was that good, huh?"

Mac looked sheepish. "Sorry. That was—fuck, Vic, that was amazing. I'm just really tired. I only got three hours of sleep last night."

"Oh," Vic said. He sat down next to Mac. "I thought maybe you'd napped during the day, like Li Ann did."

Mac shook his head. "I, uh, didn't want to sleep without you," he confessed.

"Oh," Vic said. And then, thinking it through a bit more, "I see."

Mac gave a tight little shrug. "Sorry, that's stupid."

Vic shook his head, and gave Mac a hug. "No, it's _not_ ," he said firmly. "Let's go to bed."

* * *

It wasn't even nine o'clock yet when they climbed into bed, but Mac fell asleep almost immediately. He was tucked into what seemed to be his favourite position—curled up facing Vic, with his forehead pressed against Vic's collarbone and Vic's arm slung over him.

Vic lay awake for a while, listening to Mac breathe and contemplating the developments of the past few days.

This was really a thing—him and Mac. Maybe they weren't having _sex_ , exactly, but in every other way this was clearly a relationship.

And somehow, the thing that Vic would have _expected_ to be the most complicated part—the fact that Mac was a man—seemed to be bothering Vic less with every kiss. (And there sure had been a lot of kisses tonight.)

Meanwhile, complications kept popping up that Vic never would have imagined, and that he had no idea what to do about.

Mac was a survivor of sexual assault. Shit. How was Vic going to work around _that_ , when he had no idea what he was doing with a man to start with?

Mac had very firmly refused to talk about it tonight. Vic had a suspicion that Mac's 'not tonight, okay?' request was going to be one of those infinitely renewable ones, if Vic didn't put his foot down. And Vic had no idea if it was a good idea to even _try_ to get Mac to talk about it. Talking about his past traumas was obviously gruelling for Mac, and Vic wasn't sure how much of it Mac could take before he broke. He'd survived all these years by bottling it all up, and if it came out in the dreams—well, at least Mac made it through the _days_.

Cursing Michael Tang again, for all the good it did, Vic held Mac close, and waited patiently for sleep.


	17. Chapter 17

Benjamin had invited Li Ann out to lunch before Tuesday's rehearsal; he'd said that he "owed her one," which Li Ann guessed was a reference to the lunch he'd had with Mac last week.

She met him at a French restaurant downtown, within easy walking distance of the club. Warned ahead of time by Mac about the type of place it was, she'd decided to dress up within her supposed means and character; she was wearing loose black slacks and low-heeled boots, and a pinstripe-grey suit vest over a white shirt, with a red knotted tie (and no jacket).

Benjamin was already at the table when Li Ann arrived. He stood up to greet her, and gave her kisses on both cheeks. She returned his smile, and let him pull out her chair—sharing an ironic glance with him as they enacted the ritual.

They ordered salads, and entrées, and Benjamin suggested a half-litre of a local white wine (Niagara Valley, 1995).

"So," Benjamin said once their glasses had been poured, "tell me; what was it that drew you to drag?"

Li Ann sipped her wine—it was nice, crisp and chilled—and contemplated how to formulate an answer other than 'My boss ordered me to infiltrate your social scene.'

She probably should've anticipated this, and come up with some answers ahead of time.

When Benjamin had invited her to lunch, it had occurred to Li Ann that the safest option would have been to politely turn him down. She didn't need any more information from him; they already knew who Ebony Stalking was. An intimate conversation over lunch had so much potential to strain her cover—it was a lot of risk, with no possible reward.

No _operational_ reward, anyway. She admitted to herself: she'd accepted the invitation because she'd thought it would be _nice_ to have lunch with Benjamin.

Besides, Mac had already had his turn.

And she was _sure_ she could do a better job of keeping her cover tight than Mac had.

"Um, I'm not sure," Li Ann confessed, forcing out a little self-conscious laugh. "What about you?"

Benjamin gave a wry smile. "I was born to it, my darling." He took an ostentatious sip of wine, and leaned back. "I used to sneak into my mother's closet to try on her high heels and slips, of course, like any self-respecting secretly-gay six-year-old."

Li Ann couldn't help grinning back at him.

"Of course I had to put it on hold during my long, grey decades of respectable conformity," he went on. "But then after I came out, when I started _going_ out and seeing the drag queens on display, it occurred to me—I was an adult, I was free. I could _do_ that, if I wanted to. And I did." He took another sip of wine, looking thoughtful. "It turned out to be a good way to get involved in the community. Performing—especially in Ebony's shows—became a form of activism, and I wanted that. Well, and I have the legal work, too; I do pro bono work for same-sex marriage rights."

"Is there somebody that _you_ want to marry?" Li Ann asked, curiously.

He laughed. "Sadly, no. Not at this time. But it's important to me to find ways to contribute to the community. Call it survivor's guilt, I suppose. I didn't come out until I was thirty-five, you see. That was in 1989." He stopped there, as though that date should be significant to her.

Li Ann looked at him blankly.

"Oy vey," he said. "You are _young_ , aren't you? What I'm saying is, I missed the AIDS epidemic. I sat it out, safe and snug in my loveless heterosexual marriage."

"Oh," Li Ann said. "I see."

"I don't think that you do," he said, looking into his wineglass for a moment and sounding more like he was speaking to himself than to her. "But that's fine," he said, brightening again and looking up. "Your turn. No evasions this time. Why drag?"

"Um, well," Li Ann said, "I guess it started with a whim." The Director's whim, specifically—there'd been no logical reason to dress Li Ann in men's clothes during the Nicholas Love case, but she'd done it anyway. "But I've found it ... interesting." Okay, there were some true things that she could say here. "I don't think that I've ever felt like _traditional_ femininity was a good fit for me. I'm tall, I'm strong, I like to fight. And if I'm dressed for running and kicking, then I'm not wearing skirts, you know? But dressing explicitly in drag—really, done up as a man—I was surprised at how it made me _feel_ different."

Benjamin was nodding. "Yes. When I'm dressed as a woman, I feel ... softer. More playful."

Li Ann nodded too. "And I feel ... taller, somehow. Stronger. More confident." Her wineglass was three-quarters empty, and their salads hadn't arrived yet; it was possible that she was temporarily a little tipsy. But she felt like she was suddenly understanding things about _herself_ that she never had before, and that was an unexpected gift. "Something happened a couple of nights ago," she found herself saying. "I was spending the night with a friend..."

"A _friend_ -friend?" Benjamin interrupted. "Or a 'friend'-friend?"

"Er," Li Ann blinked, unsure how to parse the difference.

"Was there kissing?" Benjamin clarified.

"Oh," Li Ann said. And felt herself blush. "Well, yes. But—that's not what I'm trying to tell you about."

"Okay, sorry," Benjamin said. "I'm nosy, it's a bad habit. Go on."

Li Ann lowered her voice. "I found out that my friend had been raped."

"Oh _shit_ ," Benjamin said, instantly dropping his joking air. "I am so sorry. _Shit_. Is your friend all right? Have they been to the hospital? To the police?"

Oops, it hadn't occurred to Li Ann that Benjamin would instantly see this as a situation where he needed to take action. "Sorry, no, I should have said—it happened years ago. But I only found out Sunday night."

"They could still go to the police," Benjamin said, in a low, urgent tone. "Look, I'm a lawyer. That's not my area—I do civil, not criminal—but I have contacts. If your friend wants to press charges, I can help."

"Ah, no." The force of Benjamin's attempted helpfulness was overwhelming Li Ann a bit. It wasn't something that she had expected. "The person who did it is dead now."

"Oh. I see." Benjamin sat back, his forehead still crinkled with concern. "I'm sorry. ... You were trying to tell me a story about yourself."

Li Ann nodded, trying to recollect her train of thought. "My friend had a nightmare. When they woke up, they were very distressed. Um, actually they completely broke down. And I knew that I needed to be strong for them. But I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it, to stay in the room. I had ... some involuntary sexual experiences, when I was younger."

" _Shit_ ," Benjamin breathed again. "Li Ann ... I'm so sorry."

She shook her head. She wasn't trying to explain why she was weak; she was trying to explain how she'd realized that she was _strong_. "I thought about how I feel when I'm in drag," she said. "I ... sort of _reached_ for that feeling. And when I did, I discovered that I was strong enough to sit there and hold my friend. For as long as it took."

At that point, they were interrupted by their salads finally arriving. Li Ann stared at the leafy greens with a bit of curious detachment.

When the waiter left again, Benjamin leaned forward. "Li Ann—even if the event was years ago, it sounds as though your friend might need some support. I could give you the number for a gay-and-lesbian-friendly helpline that you could pass on. I know some of the volunteers. They're well-trained, and it's completely confidential."

"Ah," Li Ann said, again perplexed by Benjamin's unceasing efforts to be helpful. He was operating in a reality which was very different from the one she knew. "I can't really see him calling a _helpline_ ," she said, faintly.

"Him?" Benjamin repeated, with a startled blink.

 _Oops._ Li Ann schooled her face to blankness, and took a bite of salad.

"Sorry," Benjamin said, looking off-balance. "Just—I'd assumed that you were gay. I guess I should know better than to assume things, at my age."

"Oh," Li Ann said, with a bit of relief. Right, there was absolutely no reason for Benjamin to leap to the realization that she'd been talking about Mac; he would probably assume that Li Ann had more than one friend. "Actually ... I'm not really sure _what_ I am."

He cocked his head curiously. "Care to elaborate?"

She gave a vague shrug, and took another bite of salad to give herself time to think. "I've come to realize," she said eventually, "that I'm not really attracted to anyone. Er, sexually, that is."

"What about the Sunday-night friend?" Benjamin asked. "With the kissing?" He refilled his wine glass, and looked questioningly at her—she nodded, and he topped her up too.

"It was _just_ kissing," she said. "I do like kissing this friend. I feel very affectionate towards them—well, him. But it's not a prelude to something more. It just is what it is."

"Have you always felt that way?" Benjamin asked. "Or is this something new for you?"

She considered the question seriously. Their entrées arrived in the meantime; Li Ann had ordered a mushroom risotto, and Benjamin had chosen the duck confit.

"Always, I think," she said. "But I did have lovers. Um, I was engaged to be married, actually. For a while. But I broke it off."

He tipped his wine glass to her, a slight gesture suggesting a toast. "You're a wiser woman than I was at your age," he said. "But go on."

Li Ann shrugged. "In retrospect, when I think of the reasons that I was with each of those lovers—and they were both men—it had to do with the circumstances that I found myself in at the time. In both cases I was trying to escape ... something. And I had sex with them because ... I guess it just didn't occur to me that we wouldn't? That's what you _do_ in a relationship."

Benjamin looked thoughtful. "You know," he said, "I think I might know what you are."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Take this or leave it," Benjamin said, putting down his fork to make an open-handed gesture. "But I do know some people who say that they're not _hetero_ sexual or _homo_ sexual, but asexual. Meaning, _not_ sexually attracted. It sounds a lot like what you're describing."

"I've never heard that term used that way," Li Ann said. "Really, there are ... people like that?"

Benjamin gave her a wry grin. "There are all _kinds_ of people, my dear. Only a lot of them have learned not to stick their heads up too far." He gestured with his fork. "If you'd like, I could ask around, see if I could find a discussion group for you..."

"No thanks," Li Ann said quickly—even though she was, to be honest, a little curious. But she probably had only five days at most left in this cover identity, and then she'd have to fade away. "But—those people. The ones that you know. Do you know if they'd been ... hurt ... as children?" That was an important question, but it had been hard to ask. She took a quick bite of risotto to hide her discomfort.

"Hurt?" Benjamin repeated, sort of blankly, and then he caught himself with a sharp look at her. "No," he said, slowly. "Not necessarily. I couldn't say that that's never true—all sorts of people have been hurt as children, unfortunately—but I know, for instance, a very sweet man in his sixties who tells me that he's asexual, and always has been, and who has lived a very happy, gentle life. He's a gardener. He's coming to the Two-Ring Circus, by the way—I could introduce you, if you'd like."

Li Ann shook her head mutely. The last thing she needed was Benjamin building a whole social network for her. She was a _secret agent_.

Benjamin looked at her a moment longer, and then reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket to extract a business card and a silver pen. He scrawled a phone number on the back of the card, and pushed it across the table to her. "Here," he said. "That's the number for the helpline I told you about earlier. I know that you said that you didn't think your friend would call it, but maybe just give him the option. And yourself, too. Okay? Just so you have it."

She took the card and flipped it over, bemused. It had Benjamin's full name, the name of his law firm—he was a partner, apparently—and his phone number. All information that would have been useful three days ago, to save Mac and Nathan from sorting through five bankers' boxes worth of Bar Association membership files. Oh well. She decided not to mention this to Mac.

"Yes, and now you have my number, too," Benjamin said. "That's the office line, of course—my secretary will answer. But don't hesitate to call, if ... well." He shrugged. "If anything comes up."

Li Ann discovered that her throat felt a little tight. "Thanks," she managed to say with a steady smile.

She was going to miss Benjamin, when this case ended.

* * *

Mac let them into the club when they arrived.

"I thought you weren't actually working until later?" Li Ann asked, looking around and noting the absence of any other security guards.

"Yeah, sure, I'm doing six till one on the door," Mac said. "But I told Ryan he could take off for a few hours, while we have our rehearsal—I'm gonna be here anyway, right?"

Benjamin headed straight to the back room to get changed, leaving Li Ann alone with Mac for a moment. It was the first time she'd been alone with him since Sunday night, so she gave him a hug and said, "I talked to Vic yesterday."

"I know," Mac said. He wasn't exactly hugging her back; his shoulders were tense.

"Are you okay?" Li Ann said, not letting go of him. "Did you talk?"

Mac gave a kind of half-shrug. "Not exactly."

Li Ann backed off but kept a grip on Mac's shoulders for the moment. "He cares about you," she said quietly—taking a quick peek to make sure that they were still alone, since Benjamin usually changed pretty quickly. "You can trust him. You should try letting him in a bit more. I think it would be good for you."

He gave her a kind of stubborn look. "Yeah? Is that something that you have experience with?"

Well, touché. "That might be something I need to work on too," she admitted. "I had a very nice talk with Benjamin at lunch today, though."

"Anything I need to know about?" Mac asked. "In terms of our stories?"

She shook her head. "I didn't mention you," she said. _Not by name, anyway._ "I didn't talk about my past, really. We talked about doing drag. What it means to us."

Mac looked skeptical. "Drag _means_ something to you?"

"Shhh," she said, letting go of Mac. "Benjamin's coming back."

"Ready, my darlings!" Benjamin hailed them cheerfully. He closed the distance in quick strides, his skirt swishing around his calves. "Mac, I forgot to even ask when I came in—how are you doing, my dear?"

"Great!" Mac said, with a slightly defiant sideways glance at Li Ann. "Remember that guy I told you about?"

"He-who-shall-not-be-named?" Benjamin said. "Yes, of course."

"I gave him a blowjob this morning," Mac said, "that lasted for an _hour_."

Benjamin's eyebrows shot up. "Is that even possible?" he said, faintly.

"He was weeping by the end of it," Mac declared, grinning. "His whole body was _jelly_."

"So, _that's_ developed nicely, then." Benjamin smiled. "I'm happy for you."

Mac shot a look at Li Ann. "So, you see, that _thing_ that came up Sunday night—it really doesn't matter."

 _Oops. Dammit._ "Okay," Li Ann said mildly. "I'm glad to hear that." She definitely managed to keep her expression from betraying anything. Benjamin hadn't missed the reference, though—his eyes widened slightly, and flicked from Li Ann to Mac and back again. A troubled frown flashed briefly on his face—visible to Li Ann but not to Mac—as he turned away to queue up the music.

After that, there was only tango.


	18. Chapter 18

Wednesday morning. Wow.

Vic had never, in his wildest dreams, imagined that he could come that hard, for that long.

Particularly not when it was the third time in an hour.

Really, all he could do was lie there on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His thoughts refused to form in any kind of coherent way. He thought that maybe he _could_ move his toes, if he really wanted to, but there didn't seem to be any point. His entire body—his entire _being_ —was composed of some kind barely-sentient, ecstatic jelly.

After a while, he felt Mac reaching for him again. _Jesus_. "Noooo," Vic moaned, feebly batting Mac's hand away. "You will _kill_ me if you do that again."

"Okay," Mac said, backing off. He sounded pretty pleased with himself. Vic felt Mac lying down on the bed again alongside him—not touching, though, just off to the side. Out of the corner of his eye, Vic thought that he could just see Mac's smug cat-in-the-cream grin as he lay there watching Vic.

So, wow. This was a thing that was happening.

Vic just lay there for a while, feeling his limbs slowly become solid, discrete parts of him again, and his thoughts gradually swirl themselves back into coherence.

Had there been a time when Vic had thought that he wouldn't enjoy doing sexual things with a man? Just a few days ago, even? How could he have been so spectacularly wrong?

 _Don't knock it till you've tried it,_ he lectured himself primly, and giggled.

"What?" Mac asked.

"Dunno," Vic said. "Don't expect me to be coherent after you do _that_ to me."

"Okay," Mac said.

Vic rolled his head to the side so he could see Mac more directly. "Um," he said, "You didn't come, did you?"

"Not yet," Mac said, and started standing up. "I need a shower."

"Wait," Vic said, pushing his reluctant body into a sitting position. Mac kept doing this—giving Vic mind-blowing orgasms and then refusing to let Vic reciprocate. The first few times, Vic had been relieved, honestly, because he hadn't been sure what he could _do_ to Mac in return. But by now, he'd developed a few ideas. "Mind if I join you?"

Mac's eyes widened slightly. "Are you sure?"

"Uh, yeah," Vic said, levering himself onto his feet. "If it's okay with you."

Vic was conscious of the need to be cautious. It had occurred to him, since Li Ann had told him about Mac's history with Michael, that Mac probably had some issues around sex, and Vic had no idea what they were. The fact that Mac hadn't let Vic do anything _to_ him yet, other than kiss, might be significant. But on the other hand, Mac really seemed so free and happy around sex—and Vic wanted the chance to make Mac feel wonderful, the way Mac had been doing for him.

Mac tilted his head. "Yeah," he said, with a tentative smile. "That sounds nice."

* * *

Vic started by washing Mac.

He used a soapy washcloth, and he worked his way from Mac's shoulders down to his toes, rubbing in little gentle circles. It reminded him of the Monday-night kisses—once again, Vic was familiarizing himself with every little bit of Mac's body. This time he didn't shy away from Mac's cock, but swept the washcloth around it, feeling Mac shudder in reaction. "Gotta get you all clean," Vic murmured, with a little grin.

Once he was done that, he tossed the washcloth aside and stood toe-to-toe with Mac, and kissed him.

The hot water was streaming down over them both. Vic closed his eyes against the stream, and, blindly, slipped one hand down between himself and Mac, and found Mac's cock.

Mac gave a little gasp as Vic's fingers wrapped around his shaft.

Vic took a moment to just absorb the new experience. He'd never touched another man's cock before. Up until a few days ago, he'd never imagined that he _might_. It wasn't so strange, though—not so different from handling his own. Mac was a little longer than Vic, and a little more slender. The skin was smooth, taut. Very warm, and wet from the shower. Like Vic, Mac was uncut. Vic gripped him a bit more firmly, and started moving his hand up and down.

Mac shuddered and leaned against Vic, tucking his chin down on Vic's shoulder.

Vic kept moving his hand slowly, enjoying the feel of Mac's body pressed up against his, Mac's shaky breath in his ear.

Then Mac whispered something.

"What was that?" Vic asked. It had been too soft to hear over the hiss and patter of the shower.

"Would you put a finger up my ass?" Mac repeated, a little louder.

"Oh," Vic said, with a little jolt of shock.

Was that something he was ready to do?

Well, okay. Sure. Why not?

Vic was holding Mac's cock with his right hand, so he reached around with his left. He felt his way around the curve of Mac's buttocks, and eased his hand into the place where they met. He felt around, pressing his fingers further in between the cheeks, until he located the tight little pucker.

"Yeah," Mac murmured. "Right there."

Feeling actually more than a little nervous, Vic pressed his index finger against the pucker—curving the finger, just a little more pressure, a little more—until it slipped inside suddenly, up to the first knuckle.

Mac gasped, and his cock twitched in Vic's other hand. "Yes," he hissed into Vic's ear. "Oh God, Vic. Do it."

Well, Vic _was_ doing it. He guessed that Mac meant he wanted Vic to stick his finger further in.

He did so, cautiously. He didn't really know what he was doing, here. He didn't want to hurt Mac.

Gently, Vic eased his finger further inside Mac—passing the second knuckle, and then right to the base of the finger; he couldn't go any farther.

Mac cried out, and Vic was afraid that he'd done something wrong, that he'd hurt him. He pulled his finger out and gripped Mac at the small of his back, because Mac was leaning against Vic now as though he might collapse if Vic let go.

And—oh. The sudden feeling of extra warmth around Vic's right hand, followed by a slight softening of Mac's cock. "You came," Vic observed, with a slightly detached feeling of amazement.

Mac nodded against Vic's shoulder, and made a kind of mewling noise.

"Oh my God, are you always that easy?"

Mac shook his head. "Only with you," he muttered into Vic's neck.

Vic hugged Mac tight, suddenly overwhelmed with feelings that he couldn't (wasn't ready to?) put a name to.

* * *

They didn't bother to get dressed immediately afterwards; they just lay back down on Mac's bed, with towels wrapped around their waists.

Vic kissed Mac's bare shoulder, and then draped an arm over Mac's chest in a loose embrace. "How are you doing?" he asked.

"Pretty good," Mac said with a lazy smile. "You?"

"Yeah," Vic said. "Good." He trailed his fingers up and down Mac's ribs, a little. "So that was okay? I wasn't sure—you didn't really seem to want me to do anything to you, before."

Mac took a breath, and took on a more serious, thoughtful expression. "You weren't ready," he said. "I didn't want to push you into doing something that you weren't comfortable with, just to make me happy."

"Ah," Vic said. He needed to take a moment to adjust his assumptions. It hadn't occurred to him that all along, Mac had been trying to protect _him_.

He felt a little rueful at the realization, but also touched.

"I'd thought that maybe there were things that _you_ weren't comfortable with," Vic confessed. "And ... I mean, if there _are_ , you'd let me know, right?"

Mac's lips tightened in a quick grimace. "Look, the stuff that Li Ann told you—" he said, "I wish she hadn't. I wish that _she_ hadn't found out. She made it into more than it was. She has her own history. It makes her jumpy."

Vic hadn't meant to bring up this topic, but it was something that he thought they needed to discuss, and this was the first time that Mac hadn't flat-out refused to talk about it. "Li Ann told me about the dream that you had that night," Vic said, carefully. "It sounded serious."

Mac gave a sort of jerky shrug. "Michael would hurt me sometimes when he fucked me. It could be ... sort of overwhelming. Sometimes I wasn't sure that he wasn't going to kill me. It comes up in the dreams, some nights. But I don't have problems with sex, Vic. That was just ... Michael."

Oh boy. Not for the first time with Mac, Vic had a feeling of being _way_ out of his depth. He squeezed his arm a little tighter around Mac. "Don't say it like that," Vic said. " _Just Michael._ It sounds like you're giving him a pass. What he did to you was not even remotely okay. You did not deserve any of that."

Mac gave another little shrug. "You don't really understand," he said. "With Michael, things were ... complicated."

Vic shook his head. "He was a monster. He took advantage of you, and he hurt you."

"He loved me," Mac said, quietly.

Vic felt suddenly cold. "Maybe he said that," he said, "to control you. But the things he did to you—that's not love, Mac, that's abuse."

"He saved me," Mac said. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling. "Just a couple of weeks after we met, I ran into some trouble on the street. More than I could handle. Well, I got stabbed."

"Shit," Vic said. Moving on their own, his fingers found the scar he'd noticed on Mac's left side, between the ribs.

Mac nodded. "That's the one. So, I made it maybe half a block before I collapsed. And I was thinking, _well, that's it, I'm dead_. But Michael—he must've been nearby, and somebody went to him, told him about the fight. He came and found me. Brought me to the hospital. Stayed with me the whole night. Then he went away, and when he came back he told me that I was going to come and live with him."

Vic thought about that. Mac had just turned fourteen, he remembered. Jesus. And he'd been living on the street for four months. Michael had probably been the first person to show him any care or affection since the day he'd seen his mother murdered. That must have really done a number on him; of course he'd imprinted on Michael. "Okay," Vic said, "I can see why you felt like he cared about you. But that doesn't excuse everything else that he did."

Mac shook his head. "I know," he said. "But I was important to him. We had more in common than—well. I only found out years later. The only time he ever got drunk around me. I don't know why he decided to drink that night—what was going on in his head. We were with Li Ann. Michael started kissing me, in front of her. She was pretty shocked. I made her promise not to tell anyone—Michael was too out of it, he didn't even care. I took him back to his room. And he let me hold him, and he started to talk. It was like we'd just flipped the usual reality right on its head. He told me that he'd seen his mother get shot, too. He was only seven years old. They'd been out together, shopping. She was holding his hand. An assassin just popped up out of nowhere, shot her, and ran away. He didn't understand what was happening. She fell, and her eyes went blank, and he was still holding her hand."

"Oh, Jesus," Vic whispered.

No matter how much he hated Michael Tang, that was a fucking heartbreaking story.

"Michael really fucked me up the next day," Mac said, pensively. "He was furious that I knew that about him. We never talked about it again."

Okay, Vic had to concede: Mac had some good reasons to say that his relationship with Michael was complicated. "None of that excuses any of what he did," Vic insisted. " _You_ had terrible experiences, and they didn't turn you into a monster."

"Michael was raised as Triad," Mac said. "That does things to you. He had to be hard to survive."

Vic shook his head. "Why are you defending him? He tried to _kill_ you."

"Eventually," Mac said. "When I tried to leave."

"Yeah, and that is _not_ okay," Vic said.

Mac shrugged. "What do you think the Director would do if we tried to leave her?"

" _Not_ come after us with a dozen gunmen," Vic said. "You know, I think she maybe overplayed her hand with you a bit. Just to scare you into behaving."

"Maybe," Mac admitted.

Vic decided that he'd had enough of talking about Michael. He was feeling a little sick to his stomach, actually. "So anyway," he said, remembering where this conversation had started, "if you're okay with sex, with doing whatever—that's great. I mean, it's all pretty new for me. We can ... explore. But you have to promise to tell me if something bothers you, okay?"

"Okay," Mac said. "It won't, though. I can handle pretty much anything."

That was ... not an entirely reassuring way to put it. But Vic just hugged Mac, and said, "It's after noon; we'd better figure out some lunch."

* * *

They decided to order pizza, and watch a movie. Mac didn't need to be at the club until six. Vic figured he'd better put in an appearance at the bike shop sometime in the afternoon, but there was no hurry.

Mac selected the movie: _A Better Tomorrow_. "This is a classic," he enthused, popping it into the VCR. "It was Chow Yun-fat's breakout hit. It totally changed Hong Kong cinema. You'll love it."

Once the movie started, Vic ruefully observed that Mac had neglected to mention that it was in Cantonese, without even English subtitles.

"Just _watch_ it," Mac said. "I'll explain the plot at the end."

So, okay. Vic divided his time between watching the movie, and watching Mac.

It was good, actually, to take a little time to sit quietly and take stock.

Mac was lounging sideways on the couch again, with his feet up against Vic's thigh. Vic sort of wished that he'd sit up properly and lean against Vic, so that they could cuddle, but he decided not to say anything. Mac was watching the screen with a rapt expression. He seemed pretty content.

They hadn't really _talked_ about what they were doing, but Vic had to admit to himself: they were definitely dating.

Well— _dating_? They hadn't gone _out_. They couldn't, in fact, as long as they were undercover on opposite sides of this same-sex marriage fundraiser case.

But they were sleeping together, and cuddling, and having sex. Well, easing into the sex. Part of Vic was traditional enough to say that without penetration, it didn't _really_ count—but then the other part of him just counted the number of orgasms that Mac had given him.

So this was really a thing.

And how was Vic feeling about it?

Amazingly good, actually.

He couldn't remember feeling this content in a long time. Not since ... when he was with Li Ann, maybe? Maybe not even then. She'd always held herself at a bit of a distance from him, even when they were engaged. He hadn't admitted it to himself at the time, but it was clear in retrospect. Mac, though—he just melted right into Vic.

And Mac was _adorable_. Okay, Vic realized that this was probably the new relationship thing affecting his judgment, but how had he never noticed before how _cute_ Mac was? He looked over at Mac again. Mac was watching the movie, his lips parted slightly in pleasure. He was so _enthusiastic_ when he liked things. Like a big kid. His energy lifted Vic up. Hell, Vic had no idea what was going on in this movie, but he couldn't help appreciating the cinematics, and he knew that Mac would explain it to him afterwards.

As Vic watched him, Mac suddenly blinked a couple of times quickly, and raised his fist to his mouth. He made a little shudder; his eyes squeezed shut for a second, and his shoulders hunched.

Vic watched curiously; he didn't quite figure out what he was seeing until the process repeated itself a couple of seconds later. Oh, that was a sneeze. Even Mac's _sneezes_ were cute.

Vic was so gone.

"Bless you," he said.

"Mrph," Mac said vaguely, and sniffed, and kept watching the movie.

So, Vic was pretty happy right now. But he also had concerns.

Mac was fragile. He might look happy right now, but the night terrors were still happening—and now that he understood more about where they were coming from, Vic had to accept that they might be a permanent fixture. The last couple of nights hadn't been too bad, relatively speaking, but that just meant that Mac's shaking had subsided after only a few minutes, and Vic hadn't had much trouble convincing him to go back to sleep.

They hadn't talked about the drinking. Those two nights last week, when Mac had drunk so much vodka—Vic felt scared now, when he thought about it. Mac could have done himself serious damage. And Vic knew that Mac understood that he _shouldn't_ drink like that, that it was dangerous. But, having learned about Mac's history with Michael and the way that Michael had made emotional support conditional upon intoxication, Vic worried that Mac's tendency towards abusive binge drinking was threaded into him pretty deep.

Vic had promised not to leave Mac alone at night, but that was a band-aid solution. They _would_ be separated sometimes—their work demanded it. Vic just didn't know how he could protect Mac if he wasn't with him, and he was worried that Mac really needed that protection.

At the other end of the couch, Mac blinked again, like he had before he'd sneezed. His breath hitched, and then he pressed his fist under his nose and stifled another pair of sneezes, totally silently.

"You shouldn't do that," Vic mentioned. "You could, like, blow your eardrums out. Anyway, that's what my mother always said."

Mac looked skeptical. "I always sneeze like that. It's fine."

"Really?" Vic said. "I never noticed."

"Yeah, because I'm _quiet_. Not like some people."

"Are you implying that I have a loud sneeze?" Vic asked, vaguely offended.

Mac's lips twitched, and he shrugged.

"I don't," Vic insisted. "I have a _normal_ sneeze."

They went back to watching the movie. Vic thought some more about their situation.

Maybe he was worrying too much. It was possible. Mac had been fine before Vic came along, right?

Well, maybe not _fine_. He'd had the nightmares all along. But he'd shown up to work. He'd laughed, teased Vic, brought his trademark flair to everything he did.

Vic thought about that. Was the conclusion that Mac was resilient, that Vic could trust that he'd pull through? Or was it that Vic really shouldn't be satisfied by Mac's laughter and his assurances that he was fine—that Mac was _way_ too good at hiding his pain?

Vic was still wondering about that when the movie ended. He looked back over at Mac just in time to see him silently stifling another sneeze.

"Hey, are you okay?" Vic asked. "You've been sneezing a lot."

"I'm fine," Mac said. His voice was a little hoarse, actually.

"Uh, really?" Vic said. "Because you sound like you're getting a cold."

Mac shook his head.

"Are you on the door again tonight?" Vic asked.

"Yeah," Mac said.

"Can you switch with somebody? Work indoors?"

Mac gave Vic a weird look. "No," he said. "Why?"

Vic bit back a sigh. There were limits to his ability to protect Mac from himself. "Well, at least wear the scarf I gave you," he said.

One corner of Mac's lips quirked upward. "Sure," he said. "I will."

* * *

Vic met Li Ann at her place for a late supper. She'd ordered Chinese; there was a container of General Tao chicken for Vic, but Li Ann also nudged a plate of deep-friend squid tentacles at him. "You promised to try these," she reminded him.

"Ah, right," Vic admitted. He took a cautious nibble.

Actually, it was pretty good.

"So how are you doing?" Li Ann asked.

Vic shrugged, and reached for another tentacle. "Okay. I was only at the bike shop for a couple of hours. The vibe has gotten a bit weird there. I think 3-Jay and T-Rex are trying to distance themselves from me. The other guys don't know anything about it, though."

"The fundraiser is in three days," Li Ann pointed out. "Is the plan still for you to go alone?"

Vic nodded. "They figure I'm going to end up either in jail or dead. They don't want to go down with me."

"But they really think you're going to do it?"

He nodded again. "They think I'm a bitter ex-cop with no friends, and that I'm ready to make Ebony Stalking the scapegoat for everything that's gone wrong with my life."

Li Ann reached over and squeezed his wrist. "One way or another, we're going to finish this," she said. "And you won't have to pretend to be that person anymore."

"It's not so bad," Vic said. "I mean, it would be awful if I didn't have you and Mac to come back to every day. But I do, so—it's not so bad." He went for another tentacle. Li Ann was eating them delicately, with chopsticks, but Vic was using his fingers. "How about you? You weren't at the club today, were you?"

She shook her head. "The Director wanted Dobrinsky for something back at the Agency, so she tapped me to spell him on Ebony's perimeter. I spent four hours sitting in a van with Jackie."

"How was that?" Vic asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not as bad as you might think," Li Ann said. "She's really mellowed. Actually—believe it or not, I ended up talking out some personal things with her."

"Seriously?" Vic said.

Li Ann nodded. "She asked me how the case was going, and I told her about the show, and performing in drag. And I ended up talking about some things that I started thinking about when I had lunch with Benjamin yesterday—about how I _like_ the way that doing drag makes me feel. Vic—I think that when this case is over, I might want to keep doing it."

Vic raised his eyebrows in surprise. "How would you manage that?"

She grimaced, and took a bite of cashew chicken. "Maybe it's not realistic," she said with a bit of a sigh. "It was just a thought that I had."

"I didn't mean to be discouraging," Vic said quickly. "I mean, the Director told us once that we should get hobbies. I took up cooking!"

"Well," Li Ann said, "Cooking is one thing. But I don't think that she intended us to be going _out_ and doing things with _people_."

Vic shrugged at that. It was probably true—and said a lot about the messed-up life they all lived. "Still," he said. "You could ask her. I think she likes the idea of you in drag. She might invite you to perform at _her_ club."

Li Ann gave a little, pained laugh. "Maybe," she said.

"So you had a good time at lunch with Ben yesterday?" Vic asked. "Mac mentioned that you were doing that. He sounds pretty nice."

"Yeah," Li Ann says. "I know it's just a case, and it's weird because I'm constantly lying to him about who I really am and why I'm really there, but—he's starting to feel like a friend. I'm going to miss him when this is all over."

And that was another problem with their lives, Vic reflected. They really didn't have anybody except each other.

At least they _did_ have each other. Vic was a lot less lonely now than he had been a month ago.

"Something came up yesterday with Benjamin," Li Ann mentioned, picking at a cashew with her chopsticks. "Something that I've been thinking about since then. He told me that there are people who aren't necessarily straight, or gay, or anything. He called them _asexual_." She popped the cashew into her mouth in a quick, nervous gesture. "I think that might be what I am," she said, with her mouth full.

"Huh?" Vic said.

She swallowed, and gave him a rueful shrug. "I was never really sexually attracted to you, Vic. _Or_ to Mac, even though I do love him."

"Um," Vic said. "Not at all?"

She shook her head.

Vic sat back. "Then why did you say you wanted to marry me?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "You represented safety. I never meant to hurt you."

The hurt was dulled by time. He reached over to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. "It's okay," he said. "But I don't really understand. Are you saying that you don't want to be with _anybody_?"

She nodded, though there was uncertainty in her eyes. "I am definitely not going to have any more traditional relationships," she said. "I've realized that that isn't a thing that I want. I do have ... something ... with Mac. I hope that can continue." She gave Vic a bit of an uneasy look. "Is that okay with _you_? Now that the two of you are really together?"

"Um," Vic said, startled by the question. He hadn't thought about that, yet.

Vic of the old days would not have been comfortable dating someone who was kissing someone else. But Vic of the old days would not have been dating _Mac_.

Mac and Li Ann were far too important to each other for Vic to even think of standing in their way. Whatever it was that they were doing—and Vic still didn't really feel sure he understood it—Vic wasn't going to ask them to stop. "It's fine," he said.

She gave a satisfied nod. "Thanks," she said. She took a deep breath, like she was really relieved to have that settled, and she picked up her chopsticks again. "How are things with you and Mac?" she asked. "Mac seemed pretty happy yesterday."

"Uh, yeah," Vic said. "Things are ... good." He really wasn't ready to start talking about his sex life with Li Ann—though he supposed it would be redundant, since Mac apparently already was.

He wondered whether he should mention the talk he and Mac had had about Michael. He decided not to—there wasn't anything Li Ann specifically needed to know. "There was one weird thing this afternoon," he mentioned instead. "I'm pretty sure he was coming down with a cold, but he wouldn't admit it."

Li Ann nodded. "That makes sense."

Vic raised an eyebrow. "It does?"

Li Ann shrugged, and nabbed the last piece of deep-fried squid. "Michael never liked Mac to show any weakness. He was pretty tough on him about it. If he was sick, or hurt, he pretty much just had to push through."

Vic grimaced. "That's messed up."

Li Ann acknowledged that with a tilt of her head. "The same rules didn't apply to me," she mentioned. "I guess because I was a girl. I didn't really appreciate that, actually, at the time. Still, I was probably better off than Mac."

"How the hell did that work, though?" Vic said. "You can't help it if you're sick or hurt."

"Well, he just wasn't allowed to complain, or slack off." Li Ann paused to chew on the tentacle. "I mean, it all turned out okay, mostly. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?" She looked thoughtful. "Oh, except for that one time when it turned out he had malaria. That went badly."

"Um, badly now?" Vic asked, appalled.

"Well, eventually Mac collapsed and we had to rush him to the hospital. He almost died." She took another bite of chicken, and added, "But he didn't!"

Vic shook his head slowly. "Your family anecdotes are always horrifying, aren't they?"

Li Ann gave a rueful shrug. "Well. Consider the family."


	19. Chapter 19

Vic was fast asleep when Mac crawled into bed. He came muzzily awake at the feel of Mac's icy-cold feet easing in between Vic's own warm ones. Automatically, Vic put his arm over Mac and tugged him in close.

He was used to Mac shivering for a few moments when he crawled into bed after a shift on the door at the club, but it seemed a lot worse tonight. Mac just kept on shivering. "Hey, are you okay?" Vic asked after a little while.

"Just c-cold," Mac muttered against Vic's chest.

Vic tugged the blankets up a little higher—pointlessly, they were already over Mac's shoulders—and hugged Mac a little tighter.

A couple of minutes later, as Vic was starting to fall asleep again, he felt Mac make a sudden little convulsive movement. There wasn't any sound, but remembering the way Mac had stifled his sneezes in the afternoon, Vic thought he knew what had just happened. "Mac, did you just _sneeze_ on me?" Vic asked.

"No," Mac said, sort of guiltily. And then he rolled over away from Vic, towards the wall.

Vic sighed, and reached for the bedside tissue box. He put it down on the bed in front of Mac. "Not that you have a cold or anything," he said, "but you might want this." Then he spooned Mac from behind, kissed the back of his neck, and tucked his arms around him.

Vic sort of vaguely tried to drift back to sleep after that, but he kept getting jolted awake by Mac's movements. Mac was not doing well. He kept having bouts of shivering, and sneezing in quick little fits that he eventually stopped stifling. He started to build up a little mountain of used tissues in front of himself.

Vic tried to think of some way to be helpful, but he couldn't come up with anything, so he just lay there behind Mac, holding him.

It was nearly an hour before Mac finally quieted to sleep. Vic had already been halfway there, dozing on and off in between Mac's twitches, so he fell asleep as soon as Mac did.

The first nightmare came about half an hour later.

It was harder than usual to wake Mac up, and even harder to get him to realize where he was. He yelled at Vic in Cantonese, and tried to hit him. Vic, being more-or-less prepared for that kind of thing, managed to get out of the way. He backed off—got off the bed—and waited for Mac to focus on him properly. Instead, Mac curled up in a ball with his arms over his head and started to whimper and rock.

"Shit," Vic muttered, and eased his way back in. "Mac? It's Vic, I'm here. You're home, you're safe. Whatever it was, it's not happening anymore." Moving cautiously, he got himself into Mac's space—got Mac to uncurl a little, to lay his head on Vic's lap. "It's okay, you're okay," he repeated, trying to sound calm and soothing. "Are you with me yet?"

"Vic?" Mac croaked. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm always here," Vic said, running a hand through Mac's hair.

"No, you've gotta _go_ ," Mac said, sounding agitated. "Michael set a bomb, it's gonna explode."

"Oh, you're having nightmares about _that_ , now?" Vic said, bemused. "I was _there_ for that one."

"Get out of here," Mac moaned, and curled up, coughing.

"Sorry, shit, I'm sorry," Vic said, realizing that he wasn't helping. "Mac, that was a month ago. We got out. You were hurt, so your memories of that night are probably pretty confused, but we all got out."

"We got out," Mac repeated, flatly, like it was a lesson he was trying to remember. "Where's Michael?"

"Dead," Vic said, starting to feel uneasy. "Come on Mac, you've got to finish waking up."

"I'm awake." Mac blinked. "I remember now. Michael's dead. It's just ... a little confusing."

"Yeah." Vic laid his hand across Mac's forehead, checking a theory he'd just come up with. "Uh, okay. You definitely have a fever. I think it's messing with your head."

Mac sat up with a groan. "I gotta get up," he said.

"Uh, no," Vic said. "What?"

Mac was already standing up. "I have to clear my head," he said. "You can go back to sleep, it's okay."

Vic suppressed a sigh. "Nope. That is not happening." He stood up too, feeling his spine creak. "You can have ... let's say a glass of water. We'll go into the kitchen and turn on the lights and you can drink a glass of water. But then you've got to come back to bed."

Mac glared blearily at him. "What the fuck makes you think that's _your_ decision?"

Well, good question. But Vic wasn't about to back down now. "I'm the one of us who's thinking clearly right now," he said. " _That's_ what makes it my decision. You'll thank me later. Come on." He took Mac's hand and tugged him towards the kitchen.

The overhead light, once flicked on, stabbed at Vic's eyes and made them both squint. Mac seemed happier to have it on, though. Vic got Mac to sit at the table, and he brought him a glass of water. When Mac lifted the glass, the water inside sloshed from the shaking of his hand, and his teeth rattled against the rim.

"You're shivering again," Vic observed.

Mac kind of shrugged, and looked evasive. And sat there shivering.

"Okay, um, Li Ann told me earlier that you might have issues about this," Vic said. "But can we please just acknowledge that you're sick, and go from there?"

"I got a little chilled at work," Mac said.

Vic stared at him, trying to figure out if that was a lighthearted jest. But Mac was sitting there rigid and miserable, trying to hold himself together. He'd put down the water and was clenching his jaw now, to stop his teeth from chattering.

Okay. It was the middle of the night. Not the time to try to unravel this particular psychological damage.

"Right, fine. We'll go with that," Vic said. "So, since you got _chilled_ at work, you definitely need to get some rest so that your body can recover. So let's figure out how to make you feel safe going back to sleep."

Mac shook his head. "I can't," he said. "My head's a mess tonight, Vic. Even after I woke up I still thought I was somewhere else."

God, Vic wished he could fix this. "What about now?" Vic asked, reaching across the table to touch Mac's hand. "Are you okay?"

Mac gave a jerky little nod. "Yeah. With the lights on, the kitchen's just a kitchen."

 _Monsters in the dark._ "Okay, let's leave the lights on in the bedroom," Vic said.

Mac looked startled at the suggestion. "Really?" he said.

"Sure, why not."

Mac looked cautiously optimistic. "Okay," he said. "I'll give it a try."

* * *

The lights helped, some.

But night terrors and fever were a bad combination, and between three a.m. and dawn, the longest stretch of sleep that Vic got was about forty-five minutes. It was possible that Mac got more; for a couple of hours, starting around five in the morning, they propped the pillows against the head of of the bed and Vic held Mac so that he could sleep sitting up. Vic had suggested that position because Mac had started coughing a lot around four a.m., and sitting seemed to help—but it turned out to help with the nightmares, too. Mac woke from them more quickly, and didn't seem as agitated.

Being mid-January, it was around eight in the morning when the light outside brightened to the point that you could actually call it 'daylight.' Vic noticed it while he was holding Mac and rocking him, because Mac had just woken up shaking and gasping again. "It's morning," Vic murmured. "Look, the sun's coming up."

As Vic had hoped, that got Mac's attention—pulled it away from whichever horror of his past he'd just woken up from. "Oh yeah," Mac croaked, blinking towards the window. "Look at that."

"See, you made it," Vic said, encouragingly.

"Yeah," Mac agreed, sounding less sure. "Are we getting up?"

"God, no," Vic said. "Do you want to try sitting again, though, or would you rather lie down?"

"Down," Mac said, doing so.

Vic lay down too, facing Mac. Mac's eyes were hollow smudges and his hair was clinging to his forehead in sweaty little ringlets. Vic cupped a hand over Mac's temple and cheek. Mac closed his eyes, and seemed to relax a bit at the touch. He still felt too warm. Vic started moving his thumb in lazy circles, lightly caressing Mac's cheek. "How are you doing?" he asked.

"That was a bad night," Mac said, without opening his eyes.

"No kidding," Vic agreed, with feeling.

"You didn't have to ... I mean ... I can't believe you stayed," Mac said, very quietly. "I've never ... I don't know how to ... uh, thanks." And then he curled into Vic's chest, tucking his head under Vic's chin, and murmured something else. It was too muffled to made out; Vic felt the vibrations in his collarbone more than he hear the words. _Mmm mmve mmyu_.

Vic frowned, a bit confused. "Uh, what was that?"

"Don't make me say it again, _fuck_ ," Mac moaned against Vic's chest.

"Say what?" Vic asked, perplexed. "I seriously have no idea what you just said."

"Shit," Mac said. And then, in the tone of an extremely painful confession, still half-muffled into Vic's chest: "I _love_ you."

"Oh," Vic said.

 _Oh_.

Yikes?

"We've been dating for, like, four _days_ ," Vic added weakly.

He could hear the words coming out of his mouth, and he knew they were the wrong words. But god damn it, wasn't there supposed to be some kind of gradual build-up before people started saying things like that?

"I fell in love with you _months_ ago," Mac half-muttered, half-moaned—still with his head tucked under Vic's chin, no chance of eye contact. "You are so fucking _perfect_. And I am such a fucking _mess_. And you're seeing me like this, and you haven't left, and I don't understand. Nobody's ever ... I've never had somebody _with_ me while I ... Michael would've fucked me _up_ for breaking down like that."

Oh, Jesus, there was a lot to unpack there, and Vic was still stuck on the 'I love you' and the hollow space where he hadn't said it back.

"You're not a mess," Vic finally settled on, of the many things that might need saying.

Mac let out a sharp disbelieving laugh.

"Hear me out," Vic said. He was thinking quickly as he talked—there were some important things here. "I didn't know you, okay? Up until, oh, a month ago. The day Michael tried to kill you—that was a turning point. Sure, we saw each other every day, and I _thought_ I knew you, but you were hiding an awful lot."

"Yeah, all the bad stuff," Mac muttered. "I wanted you to _like_ me."

"Well, hang on, let me get to that. I'm trying to explain—I'm sort of an open book, okay? I mean, you don't know every detail of my history. I don't love talking about my childhood either. But other than getting set up by my squad, nothing _terrible_ ever happened to me. So I don't spend a lot of time hiding what I'm feeling. If I walk into the briefing room looking happy, I'm probably happy. When I've hit some rough patches, I've been sad; you've _seen_ me be sad. It didn't occur to me that you might operate differently. And you were _always_ walking in joking, teasing, making light of everything. Even when I thought we really needed to be serious. I thought that was childish. I thought you were shallow."

"This is really making me feel great..." Mac observed wryly. He actually eased back and made eye contact as he said it, though, and a part of Vic took note that Mac seemed a lot more relaxed when Vic was, technically, insulting him.

"I'm still working up to my point," Vic said. "The point is—in the past month, I've learned that you have survived some truly horrific things. And, fuck, that you've barely _ever_ been in a place that could actually be called _safe_."

Mac's forehead creased at that. "I was okay once the godfather took me in," he said.

"Uh, no. Getting inducted into a Triad gang at age fourteen does not count as safe," Vic said. "And Michael was there."

"Michael made me feel safe," Mac said quietly. "Sometimes."

Vic decided not to even address that, for the moment, but _fuck_. Okay. "I'm trying to say," he pressed on, "that I don't think you're a mess. I think that considering what you're dealing with, you are _amazingly_ functional."

"Uh, thanks?" Mac said.

"That didn't come out right," Vic realized. "I mean you're amazingly _strong_. I am so impressed by you."

Mac looked dubious. "I just spent the entire night falling apart," he pointed out.

"Ah, yeah," Vic said. "Mac ... you have PTSD." He could see Mac's eyes sliding sideways as he said it—the evasion was palpable. " _And_ you've come down with a fucking nasty cold, maybe the flu. You are a complete wreck right now."

"You were explaining how you don't think I'm a mess?" Mac reminded him weakly.

"Okay. You're good at your job—how's that? I mean, you're _really_ good. Maybe you don't realize it, because you work with Li Ann and she's just as good—but I was at the Agency for years before you two came along, and believe me, there are no other agents who even come close."

"No, I know I'm good," Mac said, with a shadow of a grin.

"Of course you do," Vic murmured, amused. Okay, _that_ wasn't an area of uncertainty for Mac.

Except—well, bravado. That was one of the covering-up things he did, wasn't it? When he was feeling vulnerable?

"And you're sweet," Vic went on. "And considerate, and gentle. I don't know how you came through all those experiences that you had without getting _hard_. But when I started paying attention, I realized that you're quite possibly the most consistently _kind_ person I've ever met."

"Well, I gave you some good blowjobs..." Mac said.

"You know what? Yes. You are an amazing lover," Vic said. "And I'm not talking about your _technique_ —which is fantastic, by the way—but I mean ... God, Mac, I was _terrified_ when I started realizing that I was sexually attracted to you. It did not fit my self-concept at all. And then Friday night, when I got drunk and kissed you ... shit, I don't think I've even thanked you yet. For _not_ letting that go any further while I was drunk."

"Um," Mac said, "You don't have to thank me. It would've been pretty skeezy of me to let anything happen."

Vic decided not to pursue that thought any further—but it occurred to him, belatedly and with a chill, that on Friday night Vic had been trying to force himself on Mac. Okay, he hadn't been trying very _hard_ , and he'd been easily dissuaded by Li Ann's presence—but considering what Vic had learned since then about Mac's history with Michael, _shit_. That could have gone _so_ fucking badly.

But when Vic had brought up Mac's kindness, he hadn't actually been thinking about sex. "I never mentioned," Vic said, "but Li Ann told me a couple of months ago why you ran away from the Tangs in the first place."

"Huh?" Mac said.

"When she and I were first together, I knew that she'd had a lover who'd died, fleeing the Tangs," Vic said. "I mean, at the time she thought you were dead. And I knew that she'd been running from Michael—I knew that he wanted to marry her, and he scared her. So I always assumed that was why you ran."

"That makes sense," Mac said. "Michael thought so too."

"I was having an argument with Li Ann a couple of months ago," Vic said. "About, well, you. I was explaining why I didn't think you could be trusted, and—oh, it was this whole big argument, I was really pissed off at you for some reason. I can't even remember why now."

"Probably because of something I did," Mac suggested. Which was hilariously vague, and also probably true.

"So I brought up your criminal past, and she countered that you'd _left_ the Tangs, and I said that was only because Michael was stealing your girl. And she said no, it was because of the guns."

"Yeah," Mac said, quietly.

So it was true, then. Not that Vic had doubted Li Ann.

"That took—I don't even know what kind of guts. You'd been with the Tangs since you were fourteen. All you had to do was _accept_ the arms-smuggling, and you could've stayed cozy in the Family; rich, powerful—but you couldn't. And I _know_ you loved the godfather. And you knew there was a good chance you'd die. But you still wouldn't look the other way."

"I _was_ a criminal, though," Mac said. "I mean, I knew that the Tangs were black hats, and I was still in. I was in on the theft, the drugs, the gambling—shit, Vic, I was dealing drugs on the street myself when I was thirteen. That's how I chose to survive."

"I don't think," Vic said carefully, "that you had a lot of choices."

"There's always a choice," Mac said.

Vic decided that he did not want to ask Mac what he thought his other choices for survival had been at age thirteen. "Even so," Vic said. "To make that decision to walk away from the Tangs, when you found out about the guns— _that_ choice defines you, Mac. You're a _good_ person."

Mac's expression was a mix of hope, vulnerability, and resistance. Vic guessed that he didn't have a lot of experience of somebody telling him those kinds of things about himself.

Vic was not going to say the L-word. They'd been together for _four days_ ; Vic's feelings were still very confusing to him.

"So don't ever worry about me backing out after a rough night," he said instead. "I'm here because I _care_ about you. You're an amazing person, Mac, and I want to be with you, and I understand that that means dealing with the consequences of your past, too."

Mac looked pretty overwhelmed, so Vic hugged him. He felt Mac melting in against him, the way he did. 

"Okay," Vic said. "Time for more sleep."

* * *

The next time Vic woke up, it was one in the afternoon.

Mac wasn't in the bed. After a moment, Vic realized that he could hear the shower running.

Oh, and Mac coughing, in the shower.

Vic sort of slowly pulled himself upright, and considered his next steps. Coffee? He should probably shower, too, but he'd wait until Mac was done.

In the end Vic was still just sitting on the bed when Mac came back in, damp and freshly shaved and wearing only a towel.

Mac gave Vic a nod and a grunt that probably meant 'good morning,' and started pulling open his drawers.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Vic asked after a moment.

Mac paused half-way into a pair of pants to give Vic a weird look. "Getting dressed," he said.

"In work clothes?"

"Uh, yeah, I have work later."

"Like hell," Vic said.

"I have a shift at the club," Mac said, as though maybe Vic had been unclear about the details. "Starting at six."

"No you don't," Vic said. "Because you're going to call in sick."

Mac gave him a blank look.

"Wow, you've never actually had a normal job, have you?" Vic realized. "Okay, Mac, life skill: if you're too sick to go to work, you call your boss, you tell them you're sick, and they find somebody else to cover your shift."

"I'm not too sick to go to work," Mac said, rolling his eyes. Of course his message was undermined by the hoarseness of his voice, and the fact that he immediately turned away to try to suppress a coughing fit.

"Yeah, you're in great shape," Vic said. "I think there's a thermometer in your first aid kit, by the way. Wanna take your temperature, show me how fine you are?"

"It's okay, I'll stop by the Agency dispensary this afternoon," Mac said. "Pick up some of those cold meds."

Yeah, the Agency had stuff that was not available in pharmacies. "The ones that get you high?" Vic said. It was true, if Mac doped himself up on that stuff he would be temporarily _functional_. "They don't make you better, they just suppress the symptoms."

"That's fine," Mac said. And then shuddered, pressed the back of his fist against his mouth and nose, and failed to stifle a pair of sneezes. " _T-chsh_ , _t-chsh!_ ... _Fuck_ ," he appended, looking pissed off. "It's the symptoms that are the _problem_."

Vic shook his head. "The problem, Mac, is that if you push yourself too hard you could make it worse. You need to rest. And look—don't forget your _actual_ job. You're supposed to protect the club from the Dog Pack. And, since I have _penetrated_ the Dog Pack and I know _all_ their plans, I can tell you that nothing's going to happen tonight. But Saturday's going to be a powder keg, and you need to be _on_ for that. So you need to rest today. So fucking call in sick, or I'll do it for you."

Vic wasn't sure if it was his unassailable logic or just the force of his stubbornness, but at that point Mac caved. Looking daggers at Vic all the while—which Vic did not think he deserved—Mac called up the club, asked to talk to somebody named Casey, and excused himself from his shift. He clearly didn't get the traditional spirit of a sick-call, though—half-way through the call he started talking about how fine he actually was, probably in response to the person on the other end expressing some concern. Vic was starting to worry that he would have to jump in and grab the phone and clarify to Casey or whoever it was that yes, Mac really _was_ sick and was definitely staying home, but then Mac was overtaken by a sneezing fit.

At that point Vic did grab the phone, because Mac had literally dropped it.

"Hi," he said.

"Hello?" said the person on the other end. "Sorry, who's this?"

"Uh, Vic," Vic said. "I'm Mac's—" oh God Vic hadn't thought that sentence through to the end when he started it "—friend," he finished inadequately.

Well, Mac probably hadn't noticed that little blip—he was still sneezing.

Vic should've said _boyfriend_. Shit, he really should've.

"Yeah, so anyway Mac definitely can't come in today," Vic said. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay," said probably-Casey. "He sounds awful. Make sure he gets some rest, hey?"

"I will," Vic promised, and hung up.

Then he turned to Mac, who was blowing his nose and looking miserable.

"Okay, here's what's going to happen today," Vic said. "You're going to be sick. And I'm going to look after you."

"Don't you have to be anywhere?" Mac asked weakly.

Vic shook his head. "Not really. If I hear from 3-Jay I'll just tell him I'm working. Remember, my cover job is completely imaginary, so it's a lot more flexible than yours."

Vic directed Mac to the couch, and tucked him in with a blanket and a pillow. Mac didn't protest, although he did give Vic a few perplexed looks.

After that, Vic realized that if they were going to be spending the day in at Mac's house, he was really going to need to do something about the lack of groceries. So, leaving Mac with a glass of water and stern instructions not to go anywhere, he headed out to get supplies.

When he got back about forty-five minutes later with his hands full of shopping bags, Mac was sitting up with the blanket wrapped around him, watching an action movie. The tissue box and a little pile of crumpled tissues were on the couch next to him. "Hey," he greeted Vic. He looked moderately cheerful. "I figured if I was getting a day off anyway, I might as well watch _Enter the Dragon_. Wanna watch it with me? I can re-start it if you want. This one's in English."

"Maybe after I put away the groceries," Vic said.

He went and proceeded to make himself entirely at home in Mac's kitchen. Since Mac hadn't been keeping food in there, Vic went ahead and decided for himself where the cereal should go, the flour and sugar, the spices, and so on.

Then, since he hadn't had anything to eat since he'd gotten up and his stomach was growling, he poured himself a bowl of cold cereal with milk. "Mac, do you want anything to eat?" he called over.

"Not right now, thanks," Mac said.

Vic carried his bowl and spoon out to the living room to join Mac. "You could get a waste basket over here..." he mentioned, giving the gross pile of tissues a leery glance and settling at the other end of the couch.

Mac shrugged. "I guess so." He stifled a cough into his elbow, and then picked up the remote and stopped the video.

"Hm?" Vic said, frowning at the blue screen.

"I said I'd re-start it for you," Mac said, and pressed another button. The tape started a whirring fast rewind.

"Ah, okay." Well, that was considerate, Vic supposed. He stared at the blank screen for a moment, and then turned back to Mac. "How are you doing?"

"Okay," Mac shrugged.

Vic thought about that one for a moment—about the night they'd just had, and the pile of tissues next to Mac, and Li Ann's comment yesterday about how Michael had insisted that Mac should never complain, no matter how he was feeling.

"Really?" Vic said.

Mac gave him a sort of puzzled look. "Yes, I'm fine." The video finished rewinding and Mac hit play; the Interpol warning came up.

"Hang on." Putting down his cereal bowl, Vic leaned over and plucked the remote out of Mac's fingers, and hit pause. "You're not fine."

Mac flashed an annoyed look from Vic to the screen. "Is this an interrogation? If you think you already know how I'm doing, why did you even ask?"

"I want you to try an experiment," Vic said. His thoughts were racing just ahead of his words. He suddenly thought he had an opportunity here, with Mac stuck home sick for the day ... "I want you to tell me how you're doing. For real."

Now Mac was looking at him like he was slightly crazy. "I'm _fine_ ," he said again.

"I know that you think that you always need to be strong, and I know that you think that means you can't show weakness," Vic said. "I know that Michael _taught_ you that, and that he'd only let you be vulnerable when you were drinking." Mac's eyes widened, a flicker of shock, and Vic added, "I've been paying _attention_ to the stories you and Li Ann have been telling me, okay? So, Michael fucked you up. But we can try doing things differently. Instead of needing to be drunk before you can tell the truth about how you're feeling, how about the new rule is ... is you tell the truth when you're alone with me." _There._ Vic had figured it out. He felt pretty satisfied with himself.

Now he just had to get Mac on board.

"But I'm fine," Mac said again.

"Nope," Vic said. "You definitely aren't. So you see how this is a perfect time to practice telling me the truth about how you're feeling? It's going to be _easy_ , because I already know that you're sick. And I'm just going to keep asking how you're doing until you start _complaining_ about it like a normal person."

Mac stared at Vic. "How will that help?"

Vic gave a kind of vague shrug. "It's what people do. Oh, and if you tell me what's wrong, maybe I can help. Or at least, you know, give you a hug." He looked at Mac. "So—how are you doing?"

"I'm not playing this game," Mac said, sounding irritated. He made a grab for the remote.

Vic deftly kept the remote out of Mac's reach. And, wow, he hadn't actually expected _step one_ of this exercise to be so hard for Mac.

"It's not a game," Vic said. "I'm serious. I think you really need to learn how to tell me if you're not feeling well. Or if you're feeling upset about something."

"If I'm feeling _upset_?" Mac stared at Vic. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Oops, maybe Vic shouldn't have tipped his hand about the long game yet. But, oh well, he was asking _Mac_ to be honest, so: "I figure you can practice first with the physical stuff, and then when you're getting the hang of that you can try telling me when you're feeling ... bad ... about things." It was a totally reasonable plan. Vic was sure of it.

"I can't do that," Mac said, flatly.

Well, he hadn't said _what things?_. So they were definitely talking about something real, here.

Vic gingerly used his foot to sweep the used tissues onto the floor, and then shifted along the couch so he was closer to Mac. He put a hand on Mac's blanket-covered knee, which had started bouncing.

"I'm not saying _now_ ," Vic said. "I just think we're going to have to go there. Eventually."

Mac shook his head. "You've been there when I wake up from the dreams. You've seen—it's too much. If I start letting that out into my days ... Vic, I _can't_."

Vic frowned. "I'm not asking you to talk about the dreams."

Mac gave a desperate chuckle. "Yes you were."

Well, that was worrying. But Vic thought he'd better retreat. He'd had a simple plan, and he needed to stick to it. "I'm not asking you to talk about _anything_ today. I'm just asking you to tell me that you're sick. Which, by the way, you are."

Mac looked sideways at him. "That's it? That's what you want?"

Vic nodded encouragingly.

Mac rolled his eyes. "Okay, fuck. I'm sick. Are you happy?"

"Ecstatic," Vic said, deadpan. "Now tell me how sick you are."

Mac gave an uneasy grin. "Um ... _moderately_ sick?"

"There, you're getting the hang of this," Vic said, encouragingly. He had _not_ anticipated that this would be quite so much like pulling teeth, Jesus. "Now fill in some details."

Mac looked at him blankly.

"Okay, I can _hear_ that your nose is stuffed up and your voice is rough. So tell me how that's feeling. I'm guessing it feels pretty crappy, but I want you to _tell_ me."

Mac blinked. "My nose is stuffy," he said slowly. "And my throat hurts."

Vic did a little victory dance inside his head, which he had to admit was pretty weird, but he was pretty sure that he'd just forced Mac to have a breakthrough. "I'm really sorry to hear that, Mac," he said gently. "That sucks."

"Are we done?" Mac asked.

Vic squeezed Mac's knee. "Are those all the symptoms that you have?"

Mac hesitated, then shook his head.

"Okay," Vic said. "Then tell me the rest of it."

"My head is pounding," Mac said quietly, staring down at his knees—at Vic's hand on his knee. "I'm nauseous. I can't get warm. Every muscle in my body hurts."

Oh, shit. Mac was doing a lot worse than Vic had thought.

Well, maybe he should've realized—considering the night that they'd had. But Mac's cheerful movie-watching had lulled Vic into thinking he was doing better.

Which had been exactly the point, hadn't it?

"I'm glad that you told me that," Vic said, carefully, trying not to sound too alarmed—he didn't want to spook Mac now. "That sounds pretty rough. Maybe you should lie down."

"Okay," Mac said. "Can I put my head on your lap?"

"Just a minute," Vic said. "I'll be right back."

He went to the bathroom, pulled Mac's first aid kit out from under the sink, and dug through the bottom until he found a cylindrical case with a glass thermometer. Good.

He'd threatened Mac with it earlier, but now he thought that he really should take Mac's temperature.

Back out in the living room, Mac had already restarted the movie and was lying down. "Here I am," Vic said, and Mac lifted his head so that Vic could get underneath. Vic laid the pillow over his lap so that Mac could be comfy; it gave Mac a way to lie partly propped up, which Vic figured should help with the coughing and congestion. "Okay, now open up."

Mac gave the thermometer a leery look, but he was trapped, so Vic just tucked it under his tongue and started timing. At the three minute mark he pulled it out and checked.

"A hundred and three," Vic read. "Okay, shit. Mac, earlier, when you said that you were fine? You _really_ weren't. You have got to stop doing that. I'm fucking serious."

"Um..." Mac said. "It's not that bad. I've been worse."

"Like when you had malaria?" Vic asked, dryly.

Mac blinked. "How'd you know about that?"

"Li Ann told me. And a time that you _almost died_ should not be your reference point for whether you're seriously sick or not."

"Okay." Mac closed his eyes. "You win. I'm sick. Can I just lie here and listen to the movie now?"

"Yeah." Vic buried his fingers in Mac's hair, and started massaging Mac's scalp gently. "And thanks for trusting me enough to tell me that you weren't doing well. Eventually."

"Mmph," Mac replied, vaguely.

* * *

The slip of instructions that had been wrapped around the thermometer said that you should go to the doctor with a fever of _over_ a hundred and three, so Vic insisted on re-checking Mac's temperature every hour. It held steady on one-oh-three for a couple of hours, and then dropped to a hundred and two and stayed there.

He couldn't get Mac to eat anything, but he coaxed him to drink several cups of lemon tea with honey.

They spent pretty much the whole day on the couch, Mac lying with his head on Vic's lap. Mac dozed on and off, but wanted to keep a movie playing in the background—so Vic was treated to a survey of the highlights of Hong Kong cinema from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

Not that Vic was necessarily paying a lot of attention to the movies. The day gave him a lot of time to think.

That conversation at sunrise. The L-word.

What had Vic gotten himself into?

Okay, he'd known that Mac _liked_ him. Well, for most of the past year Mac had shown his affection for Vic the way a six-year-old boy would, by constantly pulling Vic's pigtails—so to speak—but yeah, the signs had been there.

Love, though. That was a whole other thing.

It maybe explained why Mac had let Vic in so quickly—why he hadn't balked at Vic's intrusions into his space, into his drunken evenings, his fucked-up nights.

But how did it make any sense that Mac would fall in love with _Vic_? Vic thought that he was a pretty decent guy, all in all, but not the kind of guy who would appeal to Mac. He wore flannel, he went to bed at a decent hour by preference, he drove a pick-up truck and listened to the blues ... and up until the last few weeks, he hadn't even really been _nice_ to Mac.

Everything had changed after the soy mill explosion, sure, but Mac had claimed to have been in love with Vic for _months_.

Vic ran his fingers through Mac's mussed-up hair, and thought about that for a moment. And then he realized that he was probably thinking about it _wrong_. He was wondering why he might be attractive to Mac, and he kept thinking dismissively about all the ways that he was _different_ from Mac, as though those would be turn-offs. But that wasn't how attraction worked. 'Opposites attract' was a cliché, and not universally true, but it made sense that Mac would be attracted to people who were pretty different from himself. Two copies of _Mac_ in a relationship would be ... wow, kind of a disaster, when Vic stopped to think about it for a second. Like, Chernobyl-level.

And maybe Mac realized that.

Mac had loved Li Ann, after all. Still loved her, maybe. And she was calm, practical, low-key—more so even than Vic. She would have been a stabilizing connection for Mac. It would have been Mac who brought the colour and excitement.

Well, that was interesting. As much as Mac ribbed Vic for being boring, maybe that was actually part of what attracted him to Vic? Vic shook his head ruefully, and let out a silent puff of a laugh.

And then Vic moved on to thinking some more about how _he_ felt about _Mac_.

One thing was sure: Vic felt more content now, just snuggling on the couch with Mac, than he could remember feeling ... well, basically _ever_.

Was that pathetic?

No, he decided, it wasn't. Sure, Vic had not been lucky in love. He'd never had a partner who'd been unreservedly _into_ him—the women he'd loved had always been guarded, and the relationships had always had a subtle undercurrent of transience.

Come to think of it, Mac was also a very guarded person, although he didn't come across that way to the casual observer. He maintained his distance with an impenetrable shell of smirks and jokes.

But for whatever reason, Mac had decided to trust Vic. He'd let him see his vulnerability and pain. Vic wished there weren't so _much_ of the latter, but he still experienced the trust as a gift.

It was also a little scary. Now Vic needed to be worthy of that trust.

The moment when Mac had said "I love you" and Vic hadn't said it back was still worrying at Vic. He decided to think about what it would feel like if he _did_ love Mac.

There would be a rush of warm fuzzy feelings when he looked at Mac, he figured.

(He looked down at Mac, who was currently dozing lightly, stretched out the full length of the couch with his head on the pillow on Vic's lap. Mac had a soft, peaceful expression at the moment. Vic felt a weirdly pleasant tightness in his chest. Was that a warm fuzzy feeling?)

He would find Mac attractive.

(He'd already realized that Mac was really damn _cute_. Even now, knocked flat by this illness, Mac was still adorable. Vic let himself just _look_ at Mac for a minute, and felt himself smiling. And then he couldn't help mentally undressing him—peeling off the blanket and the clothes, and remembering his sleek, strong body, naked in the shower yesterday morning, pressed up against Vic, whispering that request in his ear ... Oh Jesus, Vic had better _stop_ thinking about this. Good thing he had a pillow on his lap.)

He would want to spend time with Mac whenever he could.

(Vic wouldn't want to be anywhere but here. And he was impatient for this case to end so that he and Mac could safely be in public together. Maybe they could go on an actual date, even. Drive down to Niagara Falls, maybe? Sure it was a cliché, but Vic had always wanted to do that with somebody...)

He would want Mac to be happy. And not just in the abstract way that he basically wanted _everybody_ to be happy—he would feel it in his _gut_.

(He did. And it was a wrenching feeling, because he'd discovered that Mac had so many reasons for _un_ happiness. There was nothing Vic could do to re-write Mac's history, but at least he could be there when Mac woke up from the nightmares. He could tell him that he was safe.)

He would be imagining a future together.

(He let himself indulge in that, for just a moment. Picture them, say, ten years on. Living together. Mac's CDs all mixed in with Vic's, alphabetically by artist. Coming home after a day in the field; maybe they'd taken down some bad guys ... buzzing with that aftershock energy, they'd fall into bed, tear each others' clothes off, have a quick, life-affirming fuck. And then Vic would make a stir-fry for dinner and Mac would hover in the kitchen without helping, teasing Vic and kissing his ear at awkward moments and making him laugh.

Vic would like that. Could they get there?)

Conclusion: if he were in love with Mac, it would feel exactly like this.


	20. Chapter 20

The next night was a lot easier than the last.

They went to bed around ten p.m. and left the lights on. Mac woke up only a couple of times, and the nightmares didn't seem nearly as intense or disorienting as the previous night's.

Friday morning, Vic got up around eight, but Mac slept through till noon. Vic kept the bedroom door open so that he would hear if Mac needed him, and just puttered around the apartment; he made himself some breakfast, read his book for a while, and did a light workout on Mac's home gym.

When Mac did emerge, Vic offered food, and Mac said that he was starving. Vic was happy to hear that, so he enthusiastically started cooking up sausages, scrambled eggs, and toast. Mac explored his newly-full cupboards with bemusement, and then took it upon himself to make coffee.

Once they'd settled at the table and had a few bites, Vic asked Mac how he was doing.

"Much better," Mac said. "I'm going to head over to the club in a little bit. Ben's getting us to do a dress rehearsal for the show."

"Um," Vic said, cautiously, "Are you sure you're up for that?"

Mac gave Vic a tolerantly amused look, and took a bite of sausage. "I'm fine," he said.

Vic raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Mac turned aside to sneeze, and looked sheepish. " _Basically_ fine," he amended.

Vic sighed. "You realize, after yesterday, I'm going to have trouble ever _believing_ you when you say you're fine. I mean, you just cried wolf too many times."

Mac blinked. "Vic, that's not what crying wolf is. Crying wolf is when you say there's _danger_ and there actually isn't."

"Okay, sure," Vic conceded. "Well, you're doing it _backwards_. You're out there fighting three wolves with your bare hands, and when I call from inside the tent—"

"What tent?" Mac interrupted, looking confused.

"We're camping in this scenario, obviously," Vic said. "So I call out—'Hey Mac, how are you doing, how's the wolf situation out there?' and you say 'Everything's fine'. See the problem?"

"Well..." Mac said, "Are they _big_ wolves?"

" _Yes_ ," Vic said. "Giant. With razor-sharp teeth."

"I mean, I could probably handle _three_ wolves," Mac said. "Maybe I'd call for help if there were, like, _five_."

"Ha ha," Vic said. "You know what I mean."

Mac sat back, looking rueful. "Okay, I know what you mean. And ... this is pretty weird for me, okay? I've never had somebody who _wanted_ to know how I was doing, before. Not like that."

"Well, now you do," Vic said. "So ... tell me about the wolf situation."

Mac laughed a little, which was fine, because Vic had meant that to be funny. "Okay," Mac said. He took a breath. "I'm still sick. Obviously. But I'm doing a _lot_ better than yesterday. I'm not aching all over anymore, and my throat feels better. You were right to make me stay home yesterday, but I'll be okay today. I'll go to the Agency and pick up some meds so I'm not coughing and sneezing all day. I _have_ done this before, you know. You didn't even notice."

"Sorry," Vic said.

Mac gave him a funny look. "Don't be," he said. "I didn't _want_ you to notice."

Vic shrugged. "All right. But it's different now, okay?" He thought for a moment. He still wasn't entirely convinced that Mac was ready to go back to work. "Are you at least on the early shift today?"

"No, late shift. I'm just going in early for the rehearsal."

"Are you on the door?"

Mac nodded, looking wary. "It'll be _fine_ , I swear. I'm really feeling okay. Do you want to take my temperature again?"

"Yes," Vic decided, because Mac just wasn't a reliable source when the question was how he was doing.

He fetched the thermometer from the bedroom, and stuck it under Mac's tongue. Mac rolled his eyes at Vic, but willingly leaned the side of his head against Vic's chest and let Vic pet his hair while they waited the three minutes.

"A hundred and one," Vic read the temperature when it was done. "That's still a fever, Mac."

"Let me see that," Mac said. He squinted at it. "That's, like, a hundred-point-five."

Vic took it back and examined it closely. "Okay," he conceded. "You _almost_ don't have a fever."

"I'll be fine with the drugs," Mac said. "I gotta get ready to go now."

Vic gave up at that point—Mac was determined, and he was definitely a lot less sick than yesterday.

Vic started clearing away the dishes, and he heard the shower start up.

If only Mac weren't working _outside_ , till two in the morning.

Well ... maybe Vic could do something about that?

He went and got the phone book, and looked up the club. Maybe he could get Mac's shift swapped, at least—get him indoors for the night?

There was no answer at the club. Right, there probably wasn't anybody there yet.

Vic tried calling Li Ann.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey," Vic said. "Do you have a phone number for Mac's boss at the club?"

"No," she said. "Why?"

Vic explained, briefly—staying light on the details, because he didn't want to worry Li Ann.

"You could try calling Benjamin," Li Ann suggested, when Vic was done. "He knows Casey, I think. I'll give you his number."

Vic wrote the number down on a grocery receipt.

When he called the number, a woman answered. "Benjamin Goldman's office," she said. "How can I help you?"

"Um, hi," Vic said. "Can I, uh, speak to him?"

"I'll check if he's available," she said. "Are you a current client?"

"No," Vic said. "Uh, tell him it's about Mac."

"All right," the woman said. "Hold please."

There was string music.

After about half a minute, a man came on the line. "Hello?" he said.

"Hi," Vic said. "Ben?"

"Yes," the man said. "Who is this?"

"You don't know me," Vic said. "I'm Mac's, uh—" oh shit, here he was in this sentence again. Okay, he was going to do it right this time: "—boyfriend."

" _Vic?!_ " Ben said, sounding delighted.

"Er, yes," Vic said, startled. "Mac told you about me?"

"Only good things, don't worry," Ben said. "But—sorry, why are you calling me? Is everything all right?"

"Well, Mac's a bit sick," Vic said.

"Oh, shit," Ben said. "I'm sorry to hear that. Does he have to bail on rehearsal?"

"No, he's going to make it," Vic said. "But then he's scheduled to work until two in the morning, and he'll be outside in the cold—and, well, he was home sick all day yesterday, and he's still got a bit of a fever, and I just think it would be safer if he could swap with somebody and work indoors. Only there's nobody at the club yet, and I was wondering if you might have Casey's number?"

"Hm," Ben said. "Sorry, why are _you_ calling about this? Is Mac there?"

"Ah, he's in the shower," Vic said. "He ... doesn't exactly know that I'm doing this for him."

"Oh?" Ben said.

"He has an insufficient sense of self-preservation," Vic said, defensively.

"Ah," Ben said. There was a thoughtful pause, and then he added, "Well, you might be right about that. Let me make a few calls; I'll see if I can help."

Vic washed the breakfast dishes while he waited. It didn't take long; the phone rang just as he was scrubbing the frying pan. He quickly dried his hands and grabbed the phone.

"Hi," Ben said. "Vic?"

"Yup."

"I can give you the number for the guy who's on the schedule for this afternoon. You can ask him if he's willing to switch. His name's Ryan." Ben read off the number, and Vic scrawled it on the receipt. "Okay, good luck," Ben said then. "And ... Vic?"

"Uh huh?"

"Never hesitate to call, okay? If there's anything you need ... Look, I know you don't know me, but I understand that Mac's been through some rough times lately."

"Uh, yeah?" Vic said, vaguely. He couldn't remember quite what Mac had said that he'd told Ben—and he _hadn't_ known that Mac had told Ben about Vic.

"With the ex," Ben clarified.

"Michael," Vic said, automatically. It sort of accidentally came out as a bit of a snarl.

"Mac never mentioned a name," Ben said. "The one who died in the car crash?"

"That's him," Vic said.

"Anyway," Ben said, "I'm here. If anything comes up."

"Thanks," Vic said. It was a generous offer, even if it wasn't one Vic would be able to take advantage of.

Ben seemed like a pretty nice guy. Vic could see why Mac and Li Ann liked him.

He called Ryan next. Vic introduced himself—he didn't even stumble on the word 'boyfriend' this time—and briefly explained his request.

"No problem," Ryan said right away. "I wouldn't mind starting later today. Anyway, I owe Mac one—he gave me the afternoon off on Tuesday, did half my shift for me for free."

"Great," Vic said. "Thanks!"

Well, that was surprisingly easy.

It occurred to Vic, as he returned to the frying pan and finished scrubbing it, that in the space of just a week and a half undercover, Mac had managed to build up a network of people who liked him and were willing to go out of their way to help him out when he needed it.

All of which would go poof when the case ended, of course. Shit.

No wonder everyone who worked for the Agency was fucked up somehow.

He finished with the frying pan, drained the dishwater, and looked around for something else he could fix. He was on a roll, here.

The sheets on the bed could probably use washing. Mac must have a spare set around somewhere....

* * *

Vic was sitting on the couch when Mac came out from the bedroom. Mac was freshly shaved and dressed for work.

Mac stopped when he saw what was on the coffee table.

"Ah, what's that?" he said, uneasily.

Vic looked at the vodka bottle. "You tell me," he said.

Mac gave an uncomfortable chuckle. "What were you doing in my linen closet?"

At least, Vic observed silently, that suggested that there was only _one_ secret vodka bottle hidden in the apartment. "Looking for clean sheets," he said. "Mac, why did you have vodka hidden in your linen closet?"

"Oh," Mac said. "Storage. I must've tucked it in there at some point to get it out of the way. Ages ago. I'd forgotten it was even there."

Vic shook his head. _Shit_ , this already looked pretty bad, and the lying was not making it better. "There was still a receipt in the bag. You bought it on Saturday."

"Ah, yeah," Mac said. "Okay. True."

"Try again: _why_ did you have a bottle of vodka hidden in your linen closet?"

Mac gave a slightly desperate grin. "In case of emergency?"

"What kind of _emergency_ ," Vic said, "requires forty ounces of vodka?"

"Um," Mac said.

"And why was it _hidden_?" Vic pressed on.

Mac's jaw tightened. "It's my fucking apartment. I can put stuff wherever I want."

Vic grabbed the bottle by the neck and stood up. "This," he said tightly, giving the bottle a shake, "is a _wolf_. And you are going to _tell_ me about the wolves from now on." Then he headed for the kitchen.

"Uh," Mac called after him, trailing him at a distance, "Are you going to pour it out?"

Vic was wondering that himself. But— "No," he said. "If I do, you'll just get another one. And hide it better." He opened a cupboard, set the bottle on the shelf. His hand was shaking a little. When he closed the cupboard door, it slammed hard enough to make him wince. In his peripheral vision, he could see Mac giving a startled twitch. "Keep it in there," Vic said, bracing his hands on the counter. "If you decide to kill yourself with alcohol, you can do it openly."

"I wasn't—" Mac started to say. And then he shook his head. "I have to go."

"I know," Vic said. He was still staring at the cupboard. "We'll talk about it when you get home."

"Uh, that'll be two-thirty in the morning..." Mac said.

"Actually, no. I called around and got your shift switched. You're off the door, and you're finishing at nine," Vic said.

"Oh," Mac said. He stared at Vic for a moment. "Okay."

Vic's fingers tightened on the counter. "Go," he said.

He didn't move again until he heard the apartment door close. Then he hit the counter with his fist. That was useless—all it did was make his fist hurt. "Shit," he said, rubbing it with his other hand. " _Shit_."

* * *

Vic was on the couch again when Mac came home.

He'd gone over to the bike shop for a couple of hours in the afternoon, just to make sure that everything was still under control—and to give 3-Jay assurances that Vic was ready to do 'what needed doing' tomorrow.

After, he'd gone for a solo ride. He'd sought out industrial back roads with no traffic, and ridden around until he couldn't stand the cold anymore, could barely feel his fingers even with his thick winter riding gloves.

Li Ann had invited him to dinner, but he'd declined. He'd said he had plans with Mac, but really he just didn't want to face her. He didn't think he should talk to her about the vodka thing before he'd talked to Mac, but he knew he couldn't be with her and _not_ talk about it.

By the time Mac walked through the door—at ten p.m., which was about half an hour later than Vic had expected him, so that was about thirty minutes of extra worry on top of everything else—Vic had already rehearsed the whole upcoming confrontation in his head about five times over.

He'd tried out and discarded the 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed' approach.

He _was_ angry. Angry and scared.

And he didn't have a right to be disappointed. Not really. They'd been dating for five days, and Mac hadn't made any promises.

When Mac came through the door, he stopped in the entryway, giving Vic a look of trepidation.

"Hi," he said.

Vic shrugged. "Get your coat off."

Mac took off his winter things. He was wearing the scarf that Vic had given him for Christmas.

He fumbled his first attempt to put his coat on the hook, and sort of fell against the wall.

Watching him, Vic felt his heart sink a little more. "Mac," he said, "Are you _drunk_?"

"A little," Mac said. He successfully hung up his coat, and came over to the couch. Giving Vic a nervous glance, he settled himself at the exact opposite end.

" _Shit_ ," Vic said, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Were you drinking at work?"

"No," Mac glared at him. "After I got off."

They needed to have this conversation _now_. Vic couldn't wait any longer. Mac was just going to have to have it drunk.

"Can I get you some coffee?" Vic said, already half standing up.

But Mac shook his head. "Better not. I'm dosed up on the Agency's cold meds, too. You know that stuff is basically speed."

"Oh." Vic sank back down. "Okay."

Mac's knee started bouncing. "I'm not an alcoholic."

"I understand," Vic said, "that you don't have a chemical dependency. You can go weeks without drinking and you don't go through withdrawal. That doesn't mean you don't have a problem."

Mac stared at his bouncing knee. "Are you going to make me promise to stop drinking?" he asked.

Vic had thought about that one, during the long ride past bleak warehouses. If he gave Mac an ultimatum, would it work?

It probably wouldn't, Vic had admitted to himself. Which meant that _trying_ that tactic would only sour things, would put Mac in a position where he had more reasons to lie.

"No," he said.

"Are you going to leave me?" Mac asked next. His shoulders hunched, and his knee kept bouncing.

Vic had thought about _that_ , too.

Was Vic ready to deal with this, or did he want out?

He'd thought back to those two nights last week when Mac had gotten dangerously drunk. That hadn't been fun. And now Vic was _invested_ in Mac's well-being. If Mac had another night like that, Vic would find it very upsetting. It would definitely be hard for Vic to cope with.

But it would be even harder, Vic had realized, to _not_ be part of Mac's life, but only to see him showing up for work all messed up—or _not_ showing up one day, which would be infinitely worse.

Vic couldn't just decide to stop caring _now_.

"No," Vic said. "I'm not going to leave you."

Mac seemed to let out a held breath, and his knee finally stilled. He looked over at Vic. "What _do_ you want?"

"I want to talk," Vic said. "I want to understand."

"Ah." Mac let out a choking laugh. "Is _that_ all."

Vic was angry, still, but he wasn't angry _at_ Mac, not really. And Mac looked miserable. So Vic slid over along the couch and took Mac's hand, and squeezed it. "Let's start with Michael."

"Oh, God," Mac said under his breath.

"Tell me how it worked," Vic said. "You've already given me some idea, but—he'd let you talk about your mother if you got drunk first?"

Mac gave a tight little shrug. "If I was drunk I could talk to him about _anything_ ," he said. "I could tell him I loved him. He would hold me, kiss me. He never did that if I wasn't drunk."

"And did you do that a lot?" Vic asked.

Mac shook his head. "Only when he decided it was time. I wasn't supposed to drink anything he didn't give me. I mean, once in a while I _would_ , anyway, but it wasn't worth it—if he found out he'd fuck me up."

"Fuck you up how?" Vic asked, chilled.

Mac just shrugged.

"Okay," Vic said, deciding not to pursue that one right now. "I'm getting a picture." In a way, it explained why Mac _wasn't_ alcoholic in the technical sense; Michael must have rationed the alcohol use to keep him functional. "Now let's talk about last week."

"Um," Mac said. "What about it?"

 _What would have happened if I hadn't come over?_ was a question that Vic was still too afraid to ask. Instead, he said: "Why were you drinking?"

Mac shrugged again. "I couldn't think of what else to do."

"You could have called me," Vic pointed out. "Especially on Wednesday. You _did_ call me on Tuesday, and that went okay, didn't it?"

Mac shook his head. "You would've stopped me from drinking."

"Um, yes," Vic said. "That would have been the point."

"Well, I wanted to drink."

Vic felt like they were talking in circles. "But _why_?"

"What _else_ could I do? Slit my wrists?"

Shit, shit, shit. Vic squeezed Mac's hand. "I'm not sure why you just said that," he said, carefully. "I don't understand how that relates to the drinking."

"I needed to stop _thinking_ ," Mac said. "There's not very many ways to do that."

Vic took a slow, steady breath. "Mac," he said as calmly as possible, "Have you been thinking about suicide?"

"No," Mac said. "Um. Maybe last Wednesday. But not now."

Vic kept his breathing steady with a great effort, and managed _not_ to squeeze Mac's hand with all his strength. "Have you had those kinds of thoughts before?" he asked.

"Once in a while," Mac said. "But I haven't actually tried since I was in prison, so you really don't need to worry. I mean, last Wednesday ... I probably would've started throwing up before I drank much more, even if you hadn't come over. It probably would've been fine."

That did not fit any definition of 'fine' that Vic was familiar with. Was Mac implying that the drinking last Wednesday had _been_ a suicide attempt? Also: "Mac, are you saying that you tried to kill yourself while you were in prison in Hong Kong?" Vic asked.

Mac gave a tight nod, and looked away.

"Does anybody else know about that?" Vic asked. "Li Ann, the Director?"

"The Director," Mac said. "I assume. I mean, I told her it was an accident. But I don't think she believed me."

Well, that was comforting. In a way. The Director wanted Mac functional; she wanted him working. She wanted him _alive_. If she thought he was a danger to himself, she'd _do_ something about it. Right?

Only she didn't seem to have been keeping a very close watch on them lately. She hadn't said anything about last Wednesday night.

"Mac," Vic said, "I want you to promise that you'll say something to me if you start to have those feelings again—if you start to think that you want to hurt yourself. That's a big bad wolf, and you need to tell me about it."

Mac shook his head. "I can't promise that."

What the fuck? "Why not?" Vic asked, keeping his voice calm with a superhuman effort.

"Because if I _did_ want to kill myself, I wouldn't want you to stop me," Mac said, like it was perfectly logical.

Well, it _was_. In a sense.

"But I don't!" Mac added quickly. "I _don't_ want to kill myself! I'm _happy_ now! At least I am if you really don't want to break up with me because of the vodka."

Vic winced. Mac probably did not realize that he'd just implied that he might kill himself if Vic broke up with him.

Mac was still drunk.

And Vic was very scared, now, but he needed to hide that. "What were you planning to _do_ with the vodka?" he asked.

"Um, probably nothing," Mac said. "It was just there if I needed it."

"If you needed to get drunk, you mean?" Vic asked. "Like last week?"

Mac nodded.

"Do you think you _will_ need it?" Vic asked, conceding Mac's definition of 'need' for now.

"Maybe," Mac said. "Probably. Eventually."

"I know last week was rough," Vic said, "But I thought you were doing a lot better this week." _I was with you this week,_ he thought but didn't say. "What made you think that you would need to drink again?"

Mac shrugged. "Nothing. Just ... those days always come around again eventually."

"Those days," Vic repeated. He was _trying_ to understand. "You mean ... the days when you think you either need to get blackout drunk or ... or slit your wrists?" Mac's words.

Mac gave a little shrug. "Yeah."

"So it's not just since Michael died, then," Vic said. "This was happening ... before? Since you started working for the Agency?"

"Once in a while," Mac said.

Vic shook his head. "Jesus, Mac. How did you hide it from the Director?"

Mac gave a sort of wry grin. "I didn't. She knew. She would, um, throw me in her dungeon for a couple of days and lie to you guys about where I was. She'd tell you I was off on some bizarre solo case."

"Her _dungeon_?" Vic repeated, boggled. "She has a _dungeon_?"

"More than one," Mac said.

"Shit," Vic said, suddenly remembering. "The incendiary bats. That was a fake case?"

Mac nodded.

"And the pizza-delivery assassins?"

"No, that one was real."

"Ah, okay." Vic gave up trying to remember all of the weird cases Mac had supposedly taken on alone in the past year. There had been a lot of them, so it was comforting that _some_ of them had been real. "So, how many times? How many times did the Director have to intervene in your drinking?"

Mac stared into the distance for a moment, and his lips moved silently. He seemed to be counting. Vic was starting to get quite worried, when Mac finally turned to him and said, "Five."

"Five," Vic repeated.

Well, that was ... not great. But not terrible, either; over thirteen months, that averaged out to less than once per two months.

"And is she ... _okay_ with that?" Vic asked.

Mac shook his head. "She gets pretty pissed off at me."

All right then. So the Director knew ... and had been intervening in her own way. If Vic had had any idea of going to the Director for _help_ with all this—and the thought had crossed his mind, because _fuck_ he was out of his depth here—he might as well give up on that, because it seemed like she didn't know how to fix Mac, either.

"Okay," Vic said. "Here's how we're going to go on. You're going to _tell_ me when things are getting rough."

"I don't know if I can do that," Mac said.

"Well ... _try_ ," Vic insisted.

"If I do that," Mac said, "you have to promise that you won't automatically try to _fix_ everything."

Vic looked at Mac. "Huh?"

Mac grimaced. "You're constantly trying to make everything better. Say I tell you that I've been remembering ... something to do with Michael, for example, and I don't think that I can make it through the night without drinking. You'd want to _stop_ me, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Vic said, cautiously. "I would."

"But that's too much pressure," Mac said. "I can't necessarily be _okay_ for you. You have to accept that sometimes I'm just going to _be_ fucked-up."

Vic frowned. "Are you saying that you want me to stand aside and let you get drunk?"

"Maybe," Mac said. "Once in a while."

"I really don't think that's a good idea," Vic said. "That's _dangerous_ , Mac."

Mac shook his head. "Not as dangerous as the alternative."

The alternative? Shit. Mac was talking about suicide again, wasn't he. "There's more than one alternative," Vic said. "There _are_ other ways to—to get out of your head, okay? You can talk to me. We can, um, we can have _sex_. You can work out. We can go out for a run."

Mac took a shuddery breath, and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. You're right, those are things that could work sometimes. Vic, I don't _want_ to fuck myself up. I've been working on the meditation..."

"The meditation has to do with all this?"

"Yeah. I think it might help, if I got better at it. The whole point of it is that you learn how to ... sort of _detach_ yourself from your thoughts. Instead of letting them pull you down the rabbit hole."

"Great," Vic said, finally feeling a glimmer of hope. "Is there anything I can do to help with that?"

Mac looked surprised at the question. "Maybe," he said, after a moment's thought. "I mean, it's pretty individual. But it would be easier for me to stick with it if you were doing it too."

"Okay," Vic agreed immediately. "I can do that."

The times he'd tried meditating alongside Mac during their week at Li Ann's apartment, Vic had not enjoyed the experience. But if this was something that he could do to help keep Mac _safe_ —yeah, Vic could sit with his fucking thoughts for a while.

"Would you come with me to the meditation centre on Sunday?" Mac asked.

"Definitely," Vic said. And then, feeling shaky with relief, he gave Mac a hug.

They were making plans. They were finding a way out of this very frightening place. And Mac may have told Vic that he couldn't fix everything—but Vic was hopeful now that Mac hadn't given up on trying to fix _himself_.

Mac melted into the hug, in that way that he had. "Thanks," he breathed, against Vic's neck. "I don't deserve you."

"Yes you do," Vic said. "And I'll keep telling you so."

Mac didn't seem inclined to end the hug, so Vic just held him for a while, warm and breathing.

The scent of alcohol was very noticeable when they were this close—an uncomfortable reminder that Mac had come into this conversation drunk.

"Mac," Vic said after a little while, "why did you drink before you came home tonight?"

There was a long delay before Mac spoke. "I was scared," he said finally.

"That I would break up with you?" Vic asked.

He felt Mac nod—Mac's head was still tucked against Vic's shoulder. "And I knew that you wanted to talk," he added. "And I didn't think that I could."

"So you got drunk..." Vic said, "so that you could talk to me?" _Like you used to with Michael?_ he thought, but did not add.

"So that I could tell you what you wanted to know," Mac said.

"Ah," Vic said. "Okay. That's a thing that we're gonna work on, Mac. I'm glad that you decided to be honest with me—" he _was_ , although Mac's confessions tonight had scared the hell out of him "—but I really want you to learn how to do this sober."

"You are _so_ different from Michael," Mac murmured.

"I sure fucking hope so," Vic said. "Okay. One other thing. Li Ann needs to know about all this."

"What?!" Mac said. "Fuck no. Vic, _no_."

"Yes," Vic insisted. "Speaking of ways in which I am different from Michael. We don't hide things from Li Ann. She loves you, and she is fifty percent of your support network, and she is going to help me protect you."

"No," Mac said again, panicky. "You're _doing_ it again, you're trying to fix everything, _shit_. I don't want to drag Li Ann down into this, it's too much."

"She's stronger than you think," Vic promised.

"I can't tell her all that stuff, _please_ don't make me go through all that again," Mac begged, talking quickly. "I don't need her to protect me, I'm _fine_ , we're going to do meditation, right?"

Vic didn't bother to point out that Mac was contradicting himself in every second sentence. "You don't have to talk to her," he said instead. "At least not yet. I'll do it. But she definitely needs to know, because I'm sorry, but right now you _do_ need her protection. Mac, you got drunk tonight so that you could be honest with me, and then you told me that you've been thinking about killing yourself. I am not going to be leaving you alone _at all_ until I'm sure that you're doing a _lot_ better—and I can't be with you all the time."

"Fuck," Mac said in a tone of defeat, "I shouldn't have told you that."

"Yes, you should've," Vic said. "Because I love you."

Mac lifted his head. "What?" he said.

Oh; adrenaline rush. "I _love_ you," Vic said. "I know that things are hard for you right now. I guess that things have been pretty awful for you ever since Michael came back. But for _me_ —fuck, Mac, I've felt happier about my life in the past week than I can remember feeling in _years_. Maybe _ever_. And if you can make me feel like that when you're in the middle of a fucking crisis, just imagine how you're going to make me feel when you're doing _better_. So ... let me be selfish, and keep you safe, so that you'll be around later to make my life wonderful."

Mac gave Vic a sort of shaky smile. "Well, when you put it like _that_..." he said.

"So I'm going to talk to Li Ann tomorrow," Vic pressed.

Mac took a deep breath. "Okay. But do it without me. I really don't think I can go through all this again tomorrow—especially sober."

"Okay," Vic said, and kissed Mac's temple. "Let's go to bed."

* * *

It wasn't until they were in bed, and Mac was curled up against Vic's chest, that Vic thought to ask, "Are you even going to be able to sleep? When did you take your last dose of that cold medicine?"

"Don't worry," Mac murmured sort of sleepily, "I took a downer before I brushed my teeth."

Vic opened his eyes. "You did _what?_ "

"I got them at the dispensary along with the meds," Mac said. "They'll give them to you if you ask. Otherwise the cold medicine gives you insomnia."

Vic suddenly felt wide awake. "Mac, you've been _drinking_. You can't mix that stuff."

"Been a couple of hours since the drinking," Mac murmured drowsily. "It's fine."

"It's _not_ fine," Vic said. "Shit. Mac, _look_ at me."

Mac kind of shook his head and curled in tighter against Vic's chest. "Soooo tired," he said. "Gotta sleep now."

 _Fuck_.

Unsure what to do, Vic lay there with his eyes wide open, holding Mac and listening to his breathing grow soft and even—he was clearly asleep within a minute or two.

Should Vic wake him up? Take him to the ER?

But Mac needed to sleep. He was still fighting that illness—he hadn't seemed sick this evening, but Vic knew that was only because of the drugs.

He was probably fine. Vic was probably worrying too much.

Just—maybe Vic should stay awake for a couple of hours. To make sure.

He eased himself out of the bed, and went to make himself some coffee.

* * *

Vic brought a chair into the bedroom, and set it facing the bed. He sat in it, and after a moment propped his feet up against the edge of the bed, and rested the hot coffee mug on his bent knees.

While the coffee had been brewing, Vic had gone into the bathroom and checked out Mac's medicine cabinet. He'd found a new little prescription bottle from the Agency. The label listed the contents as Valium (4 pills), and there were three left at the bottom of the bottle, so at least Vic knew that Mac had only taken one.

Vic had confiscated the rest of the bottle, just to be on the safe side.

He looked at Mac. The overhead light was on—they'd left it on again when they'd gone to bed. Mac was still curled up on his side, facing Vic. He hadn't moved when Vic had left the bed.

He looked peaceful; there was no tension in his face. Vic knew by now that Mac often _was_ tense in his sleep, so it was sort of nice to see him looking relaxed. Especially after the harrowing conversation they'd just been through. The only problem was, he was only that relaxed because he was drugged.

His breathing was steady. That was what Vic was sitting here watching for—the breathing.

A couple of hours should be enough, Vic figured. In a couple of hours, Mac's body would have processed the alcohol, and Vic would feel safe going to sleep.

Vic sipped his coffee.

Was he angry at Mac? He explored the idea experimentally. He thought that maybe he should be, but actually at this point Vic just felt _numb_.

He didn't think that Mac had intended to harm himself by mixing the drugs and alcohol. Even after the conversation they'd had tonight, Mac had mentioned the sedative casually.

Mac was reckless. That was a fact; it was an uneasy fact, and it had bothered Vic even _before_ he'd fallen in love with Mac.

Mac's relationship with alcohol clearly made him prone to being careless. He flirted with toxic overdoses semi-regularly. What he'd drunk tonight probably hadn't seemed like a big deal to Mac; after all, he hadn't been _sick_. It probably hadn't even _occurred_ to him that there might be a problem with taking the sedative before the alcohol was out of his system.

Could Vic convince him to be more careful? Maybe. But not overnight.

Vic took another sip of coffee. Mac's eyelashes fluttered briefly, and then stilled.

Vic had said 'I love you.' He'd _meant_ it. But the context was terrifying, because he'd actually been saying _please don't kill yourself_.

Vic was going to call Li Ann tomorrow morning and tell her that he needed to see her right the hell now. Because now that he knew how bad things were for Mac, Vic realized that he could _not_ handle this on his own.

Maybe he couldn't even handle it with Li Ann's help, but he had to try.

And if that wasn't enough?

Vic sipped the coffee, and watched Mac breathe, and gingerly followed that train of thought.

If everything that Vic could do wasn't enough?

It was possible that Mac could die.

The thought made Vic's throat feel tight, but he pushed through it: forced himself to confront it.

Mac had seen his mother gunned down when he was thirteen years old. He'd lived alone on the streets of Hong Kong for months, as a _child_. He'd been adopted into a criminal empire. He'd spent ten years with Michael Tang.

These experiences haunted Mac. He struggled to cope with them, and a lot of his coping strategies were _bad_. He had PTSD; he'd probably been living with it since he was thirteen years old. That must be ... exhausting. Vic really couldn't even imagine what that would feel like.

There might come a point when Mac's resources were spent; when he just couldn't keep going.

Or he might kill himself without really meaning to, through recklessness with the alcohol—or on a case, or in some other way. He'd already come close on multiple occasions.

Of course, Mac wasn't the only one with an uncertain life expectancy. Vic and Li Ann were a lot more careful than Mac was, but that didn't necessarily matter when their job routinely involved going up against bullets, bombs, bioweapons, tanks, fucking psychos with _chainsaws_ ... yeah.

Maybe the only possible way to live with all that—to live with the fact that they worked for the Agency, really—was to adopt a kind of fatalism. _Accept_ the possibility of death lurking in the corners of any new day they woke up into. Just don't think about it too hard.

Vic would try to keep Mac safe, and maybe he wouldn't succeed. But he was safe for _now_ , with Vic watching him breathe, and hopefully for tomorrow too. And if everything went well—if Vic was luckier than his life so far had led him to expect that he could be—there could be lots and lots of days of joy and _love_ lurking somewhere in the future.

Vic cradled the cooling coffee mug between his hands, and watched Mac breathe.


	21. Chapter 21

The next morning, Mac was very firm about not wanting to talk about any of it.

He also winced slightly every time Vic spoke, and took nothing but ginger tea for breakfast, so Vic figured there was probably a hangover happening. Not that Mac was willing to _admit_ that he was in any pain. Since Vic did not feel like being nurturing about that particular issue, the hangover remained hypothetical from Vic's point of view.

Anyway. References to last night's conversation were a non-starter.

"You can talk to Li Ann about whatever you want," Mac said, "I just don't want to be there. Or hear about it. Or think about it."

He then got dressed in sweats, turned on his music, and started working out on his home gym.

Vic was surprised by that choice, considering the assumed hangover. He watched Mac for a minute or two. Mac was looking pretty grim. He wasn't doing a _hard_ workout, Vic noticed—he was lifting maybe a third of his usual weight.

Respecting Mac's boundaries, Vic shut himself into the bedroom to call Li Ann.

"I can't talk right now," she said, immediately after the hellos. "I'm in the van with Jackie."

 _Dammit._ "Will you be free later?" Vic asked. "It's important."

Li Ann muffled the phone, and had some kind of back-and-forth exchange with Jackie. Then she came back on and said, "I can meet you at my place at two."

Vic accepted that appointment with relief, and said goodbye.

Then he started wondering what to do about Mac.

Vic had been completely serious last night about not leaving Mac alone—not even in the middle of the day. Sure, historically it mostly seemed to be nights that were the problem, but right now Mac was pretty unbalanced.

He could drag Mac with him to Li Ann's, but Mac emphatically didn't want to be part of that conversation.

Vic could drag him to Li Ann's anyway, and park him in the bedroom with music playing.

Mac wouldn't love that. He'd probably find it pretty upsetting. Vic would rather not put Mac under yet more emotional strain right now ... but what other choice did he have? There were just the three of them; they didn't have anybody else.

Wait. A crazy, outside-of-the-box idea suddenly occurred to Vic.

He left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. He glanced at Mac in passing; Mac had put on gloves, and was working the speed bag.

Vic found the receipt with the phone numbers in the garbage bin under the sink. He retrieved it, wiped off a few damp tea leaves, and took it back to the bedroom.

"You have reached the office of Benjamin Goldman," said a recorded female voice. "Our hours are..."

Well, of course. It was Saturday. He wouldn't be at work.

Vic was about to hang up on the machine when suddenly he heard: "... in case of emergency, Mr. Goldman may be reached at—" Vic started mouthing the numbers to himself, and scrambling for a pen.

Vic hit an answering machine at the emergency number too. At least it was Ben's voice, this time: "This is Benjamin Goldman. Leave a message." *beep*

"Uh, hi, this is Vic," he said, awkwardly. "Mac's boyfriend. You said yesterday that I could call if I needed anything? I think I actually do need a favour. So if you get this, could you call me back?" He left his cell phone number, and hung up.

His phone rang only about thirty seconds later.

"Hi, Vic." Ben said. "What's up?"

"Would you be willing to take Mac out this afternoon for a couple of hours?" Vic said. "Like, to a movie or something? And then get him to the club in time for work?"

"Well, Vic, that's certainly something that I _could_ do," Ben said. "I don't have any other plans before the show. But why exactly are you trying to set up a movie date for Mac?" He sounded a bit puzzled.

Okay, maybe this did require some minimal explanation. "Something came up last night," Vic said, carefully. "I need to talk to Li Ann about it. And ... I don't want Mac to be alone."

"Ah, I see," Ben said. Then after a slightly awkward pause, he added, "Vic, I apologize in advance for asking an intrusive question, but are you concerned that Mac might harm himself in some way if he's left alone? Is that why you're asking me to do this?"

Shit. Vic hadn't wanted to go into those kinds of details. Mac might be pretty mad at him for this. But Ben had flat-out _asked_. "Yes," Vic admitted.

Anyway, if the Dog Pack problem got resolved tonight, none of them would ever see Ben again.

"Did he say something?" Ben asked. "Or do you just have, say, an uneasy feeling?"

Vic winced. "It's not just a feeling."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to minimize the importance of your instincts," Ben said. "You're Mac's partner; if you're worried, I accept that it's for a valid reason. I'm definitely willing to do what I can to help. I'm just trying to get a feel for how serious the situation is."

"It's pretty fucking serious," Vic heard himself saying—and he _knew_ that he was oversharing at this point. But _fuck_ he was scared, and this was the first chance he'd had to talk about it. "I think he sort of tried to kill himself last week."

"Well, shit," Ben said. "Yes, that is serious." His voice had taken on the same kind of worried-calm tone that Vic had been carefully maintaining last night in his conversation with Mac. And that was a relief, because if Ben was taking the worried-but-calm role, then Vic could have a turn freaking the fuck out. "What do you mean by 'sort of'?" Ben asked.

"I went over to his place and interrupted him trying to drink a whole forty-ouncer of vodka in one go," Vic said, around a tight throat. "I thought he was being an _idiot_. But last night—well, actually what happened first, was I discovered that Mac hid another vodka bottle in the closet, after I got rid of the last one. And when I confronted him and made him talk about it, about the drinking, he sort of said that it was the only thing stopping him from slashing his wrists. And also he said that if I hadn't interrupted him last Wednesday he _probably_ would've started puking before he drank enough to kill himself. Like that was supposed to reassure me."

"Vic, where is Mac right now?" Ben asked.

"Just in the other room."

"Does he know that you're talking to me?"

"No," Vic confessed. "But he knows I'm going to talk to Li Ann. And he doesn't want to be there for it."

"Has he said anything about _planning_ to hurt himself?" Ben asked. "Made any sort of threats?"

"Um, threats, no. I mean, I _asked_ him. And he said he wasn't. But also, he said that if he wanted to kill himself he wouldn't tell me, because he knew I'd try to stop him."

"Vic, I'll be frank with you," Ben said, "Right now I'm trying to decide whether I should be taking Mac to the movies or to the ER."

"Ah," Vic said, and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Right. Ben didn't know that Mac was a secret agent. He didn't know about the Agency and their fucked-up, constrained choices, and the fact that Mac, Vic and Li Ann didn't really _live_ in the world the way normal people did, they just visited it for missions.

But on the other hand—they did go to the hospital when they were hurt and needed to be patched up. Was it totally unthinkable that Mac could benefit from some actual psychiatric care before the Director snatched him back and restored him to Limbo?

It was tempting, in a way. Vic was feeling utterly overwhelmed right now. It would be such a relief to hand the burden of Mac's safety over to the professionals.

But. Here's the thing. Mac wasn't even really necessarily in crisis. He'd had a couple of rough nights last week (flirted with destruction)—but all in all he might not be any worse off than he had been all year. It was just that now Vic _knew_ what was going on.

Mac's problems were bone-deep. They weren't going to be fixed by a short stay in the psych ward. (And a _long_ stay in the psych ward would probably make them _worse_. Mac had tried to kill himself in prison. Fuck.)

"I don't think the ER would be a good idea," Vic said slowly. "I think he's better off ... with people who care about him. And working. Work is important to him." That wasn't a lie, although the work that Mac did was not the work that Ben thought he did. As much as Mac griped about being trapped working for the Agency, Vic knew that catching the bad guys and protecting innocent people meant as much to Mac as it did to Vic. "And there's your show tonight; I know he's looking forward to being in that."

"Mac's safety is more important than the show," Ben said, very seriously, and Vic loved him a little for how he hadn't hesitated in establishing that priority. "But if you think that he's better off outside of the hospital, we'll stick with that for now. I'll take him to a matinee, and bring him to the club afterwards. Full disclosure, though—if he says or does anything this afternoon that makes me think he's in immediate danger, I _will_ bring him to the hospital if I can."

"That's fair," Vic had to concede. He had just dropped poor Ben in the deep end of this, after all. "But I'm pretty sure he'll be fine." As long as Mac had someone to perform for, he _would_ be fine, at least on the surface—and okay-on-the-surface would be enough to get him through the day.

And Vic would be there to get him through the night.

"All right," Ben said. "You can have him meet me at the Cineplex on Yonge at one-thirty."

"I'll bring him," Vic said, with a feeling of weak-kneed relief. "And ... thanks."

* * *

Mac was still on the speed bag when Vic emerged from the bedroom. He didn't react when Vic went over next to him and said "Hey," so Vic put his hand against the back of the bag to stop it from bouncing.

Mac wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his wrist, and said, "What?"

"You should shower," Vic said. "And try to eat something. You're going out to see a movie with Ben after lunch."

Mac blinked. "I'm what?"

"At the Cineplex downtown."

"With _Ben_?" Mac repeated, sounding confused. "Did he invite Li Ann too?"

"No," Vic said. It was tempting to be a little evasive, and maybe avoid a confrontation—but Vic was trying to teach _Mac_ to be more honest, so he'd better practice what he preached. Full disclosure, then: "I called him and asked him to take you out. I didn't want you to be alone while I'm at Li Ann's place."

Mac shook his head, still perplexed. "You called _Ben_? And asked him to take me out to a movie? How the hell did you even get his number?"

"Li Ann gave it to me."

"And he said yes? He didn't find that ... weird?"

 _Full_ disclosure. "I told him why," Vic said, and braced himself.

Mac was silent for a moment before his expression tightened and he hit the speed bag with a single _thwap_. " _Shit_ ," he said. "You told him _what_ , exactly? Vic, I'm _undercover_."

"You already told him practically your whole life story," Vic pointed out. "And you told him about _me_."

Mac looked slightly guilty at that, which at least was a nice distraction. "I never thought that would get back to you," he said. "Did he tell you what I _said_?"

Vic shrugged. "All good things," he quoted. "Apparently."

"No details, then," Mac said, sounding relieved.

Well, that made Vic curious. But Mac spoke again before Vic could ask any questions that he _might_ later regret about what kind of gossiping Mac had been doing about his love life.

"But _what_ did you tell him about me?"

"That I was worried about you," Vic said. "That I didn't want you to be alone." He took a breath and laid a hand on Mac's shoulder. "That you'd been having suicidal thoughts."

Mac tried to shake Vic's hand off with a twitch of his shoulder, but when Vic tightened his grip and held on, Mac didn't try again. He stood rigid, staring at the speed bag. "I'm not," he said.

"You were last week," Vic said carefully, not letting go. He could feel how tense Mac's shoulder was. "And maybe you're fine today, but I'm not going to risk your life on a 'maybe.' Ben will take you out to a movie, and that'll be fun, and then you'll have your dance at the fundraiser, and then we'll spend the night together. _Maybe_ you would've been fine on your own. You've survived a hell of a lot on your own, Mac; I know that you're strong. But right now you don't have to be. You can lean on me. _And_ Li Ann. And Ben, too, at least for today."

Mac was still rigid, miserable, tense. So Vic leaned in and kissed the part of his face which he could reach, which was the edge of his jaw. "How about I come with you for the shower?" he suggested. "I could wash your back."

This time, Vic could see the exact moment when Mac decided that he was going to perform _okayness_. Mac took a breath, his shoulders rolled back and loosened, and he put on a playful grin. "Not gonna say no to that," he said.

Mac's sudden lift in mood might be just an act—was _definitely_ just an act, Vic reminded himself, and it was important that Vic start recognizing how good at acting Mac was—but Vic figured that a hot shower with a lot of touching and kissing and maybe some sexy play would help Mac feel better for real. Anyway, it would sure help _Vic_ feel better.

"Come on," he said, taking Mac by the hand. "Let's get clean."

* * *

Li Ann made tea before they started to talk.

Vic knew that she was picking up on his nervous mood, but he didn't say anything until they were sitting at the table with tea steaming in their little porcelain cups.

Actually he was calmer than he might have been, since he'd already given voice to the worst of his worries in the phone conversation with Ben. And he knew that Mac was safe. Vic had handed him off to Ben in front of the theatre. That had gone smoothly enough—they'd all _known_ why they were there, but Mac had done his acting-totally-fine thing, and Ben had followed his lead and greeted him casually. When Vic had left them, they'd been debating whether to see _You've Got Mail_ or _Shakespeare in Love_.

"So what is it that you wanted to talk about?" Li Ann asked.

Vic took a deep breath. "We need to talk about Mac."

"Okay," she said, and looked at him expectantly.

"He is not doing well," Vic said.

"He seemed okay at the rehearsal yesterday," Li Ann said. "I mean, he was coughing a little, but it didn't seem too bad. Do you think he won't be able to make it through the performance tonight?"

Vic was momentarily confused, but then he remembered that he'd called Li Ann yesterday morning for help with getting Mac's shift changed because he was sick. "Right, that," he said. "I think he's pretty much recovered. He should be fine tonight. That's not what I meant, though. Last night he got drunk and told me that he's been having thoughts about killing himself."

Li Ann paled. "What?"

"Wednesday last week," Vic said, "I had to literally tackle him to stop him from chugging down an entire bottle of vodka. Last night he told me that he'd been having suicidal thoughts at the time."

"Are you sure?" Li Ann asked. "Did he actually _say_ that? Because that doesn't sound like Mac. I know he drinks too much sometimes, but that doesn't mean that he _wants_ to hurt himself."

Vic hunched his shoulders. "It was a little unclear," he admitted. "He said that sometimes he feels like he needs to drink so that he _won't_ kill himself."

"That's not _good_ ," Li Ann acknowledged. "The drinking could become a problem."

"It's already a problem," Vic said. "The Director's been covering up for him."

"What do you mean?" Li Ann asked.

"Every once in a while he goes on a bender. And then the Director locks him up for a few days and lies to us about where he is."

Li Ann looked startled. "Why would she do that?"

Vic shrugged. "Maybe she figured we didn't need to know? That it wasn't our problem?"

"And Mac told you about this? Last night?"

Vic nodded. "Yesterday afternoon I found a bottle of vodka hidden in his closet, and I confronted him about it. I mean, it didn't look good. But that was right before he had to go to work, so we didn't really have time to talk. When he came home after his shift he was drunk. And I guess that made it easier for him to open up, because that's when he told me that he thought his only alternative to drinking would be to slit his wrists." The teacup was too small and delicate to clutch with a white-knuckled grip; Vic found himself resting his clenched fists on the table, instead, fingernails digging into his palms.

"It was a figure of speech, maybe," Li Ann said, sounding uneasy. "He wouldn't _really_ hurt himself."

"He did." Vic took a breath and made himself relax so that he could reach across the table and touch her hand where she was holding her teacup. This would be hard for her to hear. "He told me that he tried to kill himself while he was in prison."

"Oh," Li Ann said, in a very small voice.

Vic kept his hand cupped against hers, and waited silently for her to process what he'd told her.

"But why would he do that?" she asked, finally.

"I don't know," Vic said. "He didn't talk about it. He's never talked about prison. But Li Ann, you know about the nightmares. He has PTSD. He was always struggling a lot more than we realized."

She thought about that silently for a long moment, too. Then she gave Vic a quick look of concern. "Where is he _now_?" 

"With Ben," Vic said. "They went to see a movie."

"Just by chance?" Li Ann asked. "Or..."

"I asked Ben to take him," Vic confirmed. "Mac didn't want to be around while we had this conversation, and I didn't want him to be alone."

She nodded, accepting that. "I might not have been able to believe you about all this," she said, "if I hadn't been with him last Sunday night. When he had that flashback to Michael raping him. It was ... _awful_. I'd never seen him like that, just completely helpless and broken. Shaking in my arms. But then afterwards—as soon as he'd pulled himself together, it would have been easy to think that he was totally fine. He refused to go back to sleep, so I knew that he _wasn't_ fine, but that was the only clue. We played a board game and chatted. He seemed relaxed; he joked around with me. He even beat me at Go. I mean, I did let him start with a three-stone advantage. But still."

"He's really, really good at hiding anything that's wrong with him," Vic said. "Except when he sleeps. Or drinks." This was a thing that Vic had learned the hard way in the past few days.

"I guess I knew that, too," Li Ann admitted. "But—okay, this is going to sound terrible, but I think I assumed he was doing all right because _I'm_ doing all right. I put it all behind me—the grinding poverty, my parents selling me, the things I had to do in the brothel. They were terrible things to live through, but they're also ... so distant, now. I've moved on. I have a life that doesn't _relate_ to those things. So it made sense to me to think that Mac had put his past behind him too."

Oh shit, how could Vic possibly respond to that? He had no frame of reference for the horrors that Mac _or_ Li Ann had survived. "You and Mac are different people," he said, carefully. "You process things differently. And I think that Michael actively taught Mac ways to cope with his trauma that _seemed_ to work, but actually made it worse in the long run." Not to mention _causing_ more trauma; as always, _fuck_ Michael.

Li Ann took a sip of her nearly-forgotten tea. "What do you think we should do?"

Vic was very glad she had asked; he was here for her _help_. "For one thing," he said, "we can't leave him alone."

"Weren't we already being careful about that?" she pointed out. "That's why you sent him over to my place Sunday night."

"I wouldn't have done it that way if I'd realized how bad things were," Vic said. "I would've called _you_ and asked you to go to him." He'd only thought about that later. Sunday night, he'd been counting on Mac to care enough about himself and/or Vic to get _himself_ over to Li Ann's. It had worked out—but how close a thing had that been? "What I'm saying is, he needs somebody with him _all_ the time, at least for now. Day _and_ night."

Li Ann bit her lip. "Is it possible you might be overreacting a _little_? Okay, Mac has had a much more difficult year than we'd realized—but he's made it this far, and I don't see that anything is suddenly _worse_."

"Look, I'd rather be too careful than not careful enough," Vic said. "And I think that Michael coming back did make things worse. And ... it's possible that right now, _I'm_ making things worse."

She furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"He said he needs to drink so that he won't kill himself," Vic reminded her, "and I'm asking him not to drink. And he wants to keep all his bad memories hidden away so they only come out in the nightmares, and I keep asking him to _talk_ about them. I _think_ I'm doing the right thing—" anyway he desperately _hoped_ so "—but maybe it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Li Ann absently rotated her teacup between her fingertips. " _Will_ it get better?" she asked, quietly. "Do you think? How long do you think we need to keep a constant watch over him for?"

Vic gave an uncomfortable shrug. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'd say 'until he's okay,' but how will we know? He _always_ says he's fine, no matter what he's really feeling. Last night I asked him to promise to tell me if he was thinking about hurting himself, and he flat-out told me that he _wouldn't_ , because if he decided to kill himself he wouldn't want me to stop him."

"Well, fuck that," Li Ann said, straightening suddenly in her chair.

Vic blinked at her in shock. She didn't usually swear like that.

" _Fuck_ that," she repeated, raising her voice. "We're not going to let him kill himself. So you're right, Vic. He doesn't get to be alone until he proves to us that he's safe. And I don't even know what that's going to take. He's going to have to start fucking _telling_ us how he's feeling."

Vic nodded and took a slightly shaky breath. He was tremendously relieved to have Li Ann's back-up on this. He hadn't quite been sure that he would, especially as he'd struggled to explain to her why he was so worried—but now she looked _fierce_.

"We're going to have to tell the Director about this," she added. "It'll affect the way we do missions. Mac can't go off on his own."

Vic noticed with bemusement Li Ann's assumption that the missions wouldn't _stop_ just because they were keeping a suicide watch on Mac.

Well, she was probably right; the Director always worked with what she had.

"All right," Vic said. "We can call her."

Li Ann stood up and walked over to give Vic a hug. "We're going to make this work," she promised.

Vic closed his eyes and let her squeeze him tight. "Thanks," he said. "Thanks for everything."

* * *

They managed to reach the Director right away on her private line.

Vic took the lead in explaining the situation; he was using the phone in Li Ann's bedroom, and Li Ann was listening in on the kitchen line. Vic kept it brief—he mentioned last week's drinking and the fact that Mac had confessed to having thoughts about killing himself, and then he _firmly_ explained that he and Li Ann were going to be working together to make sure that Mac was never alone for the foreseeable future.

Vic had expected the Director to raise some objections or express some skepticism, but instead she just said, "That's probably for the best. Where is he now?"

"At the movies with Benjamin Goldman," Li Ann jumped in. "Vic set it up."

"The drag queen who got you into the fundraiser?" The Director sounded mildly taken aback.

"He's sort of become a ... friend," Li Ann admitted. "It won't compromise the case, I promise."

"Is Mr. Goldman aware of _why_ he's taking Mac to the movies?"

"Yes," Vic said. "I told him. I think I had to. If he hadn't known, then it would've been way too easy for Mac to just make some excuse and leave after I was gone."

"My, my, Vic. You certainly do get protective, don't you?" the Director said. She sounded approving. "If you've got his back, Mac just might make it through all this after all."

"Wait a second," Vic said. Her total _lack_ of surprise was really starting to ping him. "Did you _know_? About what was going on with Mac?"

"The suicidal ideation?" she said. "Yes, I was aware."

"Have you been spying on us?" Vic asked. Shit, he'd thought he'd _found_ all the bugs.

"At various times, certainly, but not recently," the Director said, with her usual infuriating shamelessness. "Unfortunately I missed last week's crisis—so thanks for handling that."

"You're welcome," Vic bit out. "But maybe I would've handled it _better_ if I'd known what the hell I was dealing with. Why didn't you say something? How long have _you_ known?"

"He's had periodic episodes since he joined us," the Director said. "I didn't judge it to be a matter of concern for the team."

"How the hell was that _not_ our concern?" Vic asked, incredulous. "You were sending Mac into _firefights_ when you knew he was fucking _suicidal_?!"

"Calm down, Victor," the Director said dryly. "Mac's psych evaluations clearly indicated that he's at no risk of self-harm while he's actively working, and he has a perfectly healthy fear of getting shot. And to describe him as 'suicidal' is overstating the case; he has intermittent periods of suicidal ideation, which he systematically short-circuits with alcohol."

"And you think that's _okay_?"

"No," she said patiently, "it certainly isn't. But the risk to his life is relatively low, and I do intervene when he gets to that point."

"By locking him in a dungeon?" Vic asked.

"Is that how he described it?" She sounded faintly amused. "Well, I suppose they were windowless underground rooms without much in the way of amenities. But you don't have to _growl_ at me, Vic. It's effective; he's _safe_ in the dungeon during the dark nights of his soul, and he always comes to his senses again on the tail end of the hangover."

Vic really didn't know what to say to that, but Li Ann spoke up again. "You say you don't think he's really at risk," she said, low and dangerous. "Then you lock him up and isolate him when he's at his lowest ebb, like that's somehow going to help. Did you _know_ that he tried to kill himself in prison?"

"Did he tell you that?" the Director said. "That's interesting."

"He told me," Vic said. "What's interesting? Are you saying that he didn't really?"

"Oh, he did," the Director said. "At least, that was the prison doctor's conclusion. But Mac always insisted that the overdose was accidental. So if he told you otherwise—well, it really seems like he's letting down his defences for you, Mr. Mansfield. I confess, I didn't see that one coming."

Vic decided that now was not the time to elaborate on the dramatically changed nature of his relationship with Mac. "Overdose of what?" he asked instead. It seemed like an important thing to know. When Mac had been talking about slitting his wrists last night, it had scared Vic a lot but at least it had obviously been hypothetical; Mac didn't have any scars on his arms. But the suicide attempt in prison had _not_ been hypothetical. If he ever decided to repeat it—well, Vic wanted to know what to watch out for.

"Heroin," the Director said. "He wasn't a regular user, but he wasn't a novice, either. He knew how much it took to get high, and he took a lot more than that."

Well, this just got worse and worse, didn't it? "He was using in prison?" Vic asked. "Shit. How much?"

"How would he even get drugs in prison?" Li Ann asked, sounding honestly puzzled.

"The prison was leaky," the Director said dryly.

"Prisons are always leaky," Vic added—he'd been a cop, he understood this. "How _often_ was he using?"

"Not very, as far as I understand. The doctor who treated him at the prison inferred that he was planning the suicide attempt from the beginning, and he only took enough to convince his supplier—a night-shift guard—that he was a legitimate user. In any case, I have had a few heart-to-heart talks with Mr. Ramsey about my own zero-tolerance policy when it comes to opiates, and he seems to be on board. I'm not aware of any slip-ups." She cleared her throat. "That said, you might have noticed that you haven't had any cases involving street drugs since he joined the team. You can expect that trend to continue. Just to be on the safe side, you understand."

"Okay," Vic said—although this was all very much _not_ okay. "So do you think maybe the dispensary _shouldn't_ give him Valium?"

"Sorry," the Director said, "What?"

"The dispensary," Vic repeated, in a rising tone, "gave him _Valium_ along with the cold medicine yesterday. Do you think maybe there should be a note in his file, or something?!"

"There probably should be," the Director agreed. "I'll look into that. Did he take the Valium?"

"He took one after he'd been _drinking_ last night. I sat up for two hours after he fell asleep, watching to make sure that he didn't stop breathing."

"Well," the Director said, "As long as he wasn't taking it to get high, I'm not particularly concerned."

"Not concerned?" Vic couldn't believe it. "You realize that Jackie and I watched the King _die_ from that combo last month?"

"Did Mac die last night?"

"No," Vic conceded.

"Well then," the Director said, "Everything turned out fine, didn't it? Victor, I hear your distress, but keep in mind that the King was in poor overall health, and was putting considerably more pharmaceuticals into his body than Mac has been. Mac's risk of serious complications last night was probably quite low, and in any case nothing happened. His risk will be even _lower_ going forward, because I _will_ make sure that the dispensary puts a note in his file—and what I'm hearing now is that he's going to have two very dedicated partners watching to make sure that he doesn't make that kind of mistake again."

"Why didn't you tell me about all this earlier?" Li Ann asked. Her tone was not quite accusatory, but it was on the edge. "From the beginning? I could have helped him."

"Maybe, maybe not," the Director said—but she didn't say it dismissively. She sounded like she was really considering the question. "When I first brought Mac onto the team, you were in a very different place than you are now. His problems were not necessarily any of your business, or concern. I didn't think that it would be appropriate for me to inform you of Mac's struggles."

Vic had to call her on that one. "Since when have you ever worried about what's appropriate?"

"Touché," the Director admitted. "All right. I didn't think that it would be healthy for your team dynamic."

"You're telling us _now_ ," Vic pointed out.

"The two of you called me," the Director reminded him. "On a _Saturday_ , I might add. And you expressed a very fierce determination to protect Mac from his self-destructive impulses—which, obviously, you had already become aware of. If you're willing to take on that burden, and if he's willing to let you, then I'm happy to share what little additional information I have. You realize, he's not very forthcoming, and he's exceptionally resistant to psychiatric analysis."

"No surprise there," Vic muttered.

"And if we hadn't found out, you wouldn't have told us?" Li Ann said. She was starting to sound upset. "I still don't understand how you could've just let this slide all year, without getting Mac any kind of help. He could have _died_. Do you have any idea how I would have felt? If I lost him again, because I just didn't notice anything was wrong?"

Vic wished he could give Li Ann a reassuring hug at that point. But she was two rooms away, and her phones weren't cordless.

"I'm sorry," the Director said. "I mean that sincerely, Li Ann. I realize that all this must be very difficult for you to learn. But try to keep it in perspective. As serious as Mac's mental health problems are, they're not what's most likely to kill him. Dobrinsky told each of you the statistics when you were recruited."

"50% casualty rate for field agents," Vic quoted numbly. It was a figure he preferred to shove to the back of his mind, but he'd never actually forgotten.

"Per year," the Director added. "On average. A bit higher in 1998, actually, thanks to Nicholas Love. Anyway ... if you two are ready to jump in and try to protect Mac from his personal demons, I'll support you in any way I can. You just might be able to do it, and that would please me immensely. I'd love to see you all keep beating those odds. I'm really quite fond of you, and you do good work. By the way, how's it looking for Ebony Stalking's event this evening?"

"Mac and I are going to dance," Li Ann said. "Vic isn't going to shoot us. It should be a nice night."

"Well then," said the Director brightly, "Get on with it, and have fun!"

And on that cheery note, the call ended.

As soon as he'd hung up, Vic headed for the kitchen. He met Li Ann halfway, and they hugged.

"That went okay," he remarked, grunting a little from the force with which she was squeezing him. "I mean—it sounds like the Director's got our backs. Sort of."

Li Ann shook her head, and let go. "How could I have been so oblivious?" she asked. She sounded fairly upset. "He's been on the edge of disaster all year, and I had no _idea_. Vic, I've known him since he was fourteen!"

"Well, you were twelve when he was fourteen," Vic pointed out. "It's not like you were his guardian."

She let out a sharp laugh. "Actually, I sort of was. Not literally, obviously. But I always felt a bit as though he was my little brother, instead of the other way around."

"Tell me about that," Vic suggested. "We still have some time before we need to be anywhere."

He thought that Li Ann needed the chance to talk things out and maybe calm herself down a bit. Also, if Vic and Li Ann were going to be collaborating in caring for Mac, it would really be helpful for Vic to understand more about where Li Ann and Mac were coming from, in relation to each other.

(As always, he put aside the weirdness of her referring to Mac as her brother, when they'd also been lovers. It was odd. But he was used to it by now.)

They settled on the futon. Li Ann sat sideways with her legs tucked up, facing Vic. "He showed up just a week or so after the godfather brought me home from the brothel," she began. "At the time, I was still pretty nervous about the whole situation. I couldn't really understand or feel secure about my good fortune. I was suddenly living in this giant, clean, lavish house, with all the food I could possibly eat. The godfather had brought me in, but he wasn't around much. Michael was ... a presence. He didn't have much interest in a twelve-year-old girl. There were servants, who made sure I had clean clothes and that I knew when mealtimes were, but nobody whose primary job seemed to be to take care of me."

"The godfather didn't arrange for a nanny?" Vic asked. It seemed like a weird oversight.

She shook her head. "There were the tutors, eventually, but not at first. So there I was, bouncing around this great big house, no idea what I was supposed to be doing there, a little afraid to even speak to anyone in case they decided I _didn't_ belong. And then, suddenly, Mac was there."

"You must have been happy to have another kid around," Vic guessed.

She nodded. "I said a minute ago that I thought of him as my _little_ brother, so I should probably clarify: when we first met, he was _much_ bigger than me." She gave an amused grin. "He'd hit his growth spurt; he must've been close to six feet tall already, though he was skinny as a rail. And I _hadn't_ had my own growth spurt yet; that didn't kick in until I'd had another six months of eating everything I wanted."

Vic tried not to wince, and reminded himself that whenever he encouraged Li Ann or Mac to tell him their family anecdotes, he had to brace himself for horrific details related in a fond, nostalgic tone. Li Ann had literally starved as a child. That was part of her history.

"But when he first arrived," Li Ann went on, "he was sick. I don't remember exactly what was wrong with him—maybe I never knew?—but he couldn't move around very much. For the first few days he pretty much just stayed on the couch in the sitting room. Michael asked me to sit with him, and talk to him, and make sure that he ate the food that Michael left for him. And Mac wasn't supposed to walk, but he kept trying, and then he'd go all pale and nearly fall over. I'd yell at him to lie back down, and I'd run to get a servant to help him to the toilet."

Vic realized that he knew a missing part of Li Ann's story—Mac had already told him what had happened right before he'd joined the Tangs. "He'd been stabbed," he said. "He still has the scar. I think Michael brought him directly home from the hospital."

Li Ann looked surprised. "That scar?" she asked, touching the same place on her side. "Huh. I never made the connection. He told you?"

Vic nodded. "He was trying to explain his relationship with Michael."

Li Ann looked thoughtful. "I mentioned that I didn't see much of Michael in my first week at the godfather's house. As soon as Mac showed up, though, Michael was around a lot more. I guess I understand now—they were lovers. But I really didn't suspect a thing back then."

Vic scowled. "Don't use that word. Not for what Michael was."

She shrugged, and didn't argue. "So you see, my very first interaction with Mac was taking care of him. And it wasn't just the physical recovery, either. He didn't speak very much Cantonese at first. Michael spoke English, so when he was around he would translate, but for a lot of the first _year_ , I was teaching Mac how to talk."

"It's hard to imagine Mac interacting with anybody without smart-aleck remarks," Vic mused.

Li Ann gave a warm laugh. "He was funny right from the start, even when he barely had any vocabulary. As soon as he showed up, my life got so much _brighter_. He was constantly trying to find ways to get me to smile. Nobody else had ever done that for me."

Vic returned her grin and reached over to squeeze her hand, even though his heart was breaking picturing it: Li Ann just out of the brothel, Mac just off the street. "I can imagine," he said. "He's good at that."

She nodded. "So we fell into those roles from the beginning, I guess. He was the silly one, and I was the serious one. He made me laugh, and I reminded him to finish his homework, his training, his dinner."

"His dinner?" Vic repeated.

"He'd forget to eat, sometimes," Li Ann said. "In retrospect ... I suppose that was connected to things that were happening with Michael."

Michael. Right. No charming Tang family story was complete without some new disturbing revelation about Michael. "How would Michael make Mac forget to eat?" Vic asked, dreading the answer.

Li Ann looked distant. "You understand, there are some connections that I'm just making _now_ , as I'm having this conversation with you," she said. "I hadn't thought back on all this in years. Certainly not since I found out what was really happening between Mac and Michael. But ... hm. Food. I had some issues around food when I was a teenager."

Vic frowned. "You mean, like with body image?"

She looked briefly surprised. "No," she said. "I mean that I could never entirely shake the feeling that there might not be any food the next day. I'd steal food at almost every meal. The servants got used to searching my room for it in the mornings and clearing it away."

"Shit," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."

She shrugged. "If you haven't had that experience, it's probably hard to relate to. But you see, Mac _had_ had that experience. We never talked about what had happened to us before we came to that house, but we did figure out that we had the food thing in common. We didn't _talk_ about it, but we saw each other stealing, and we understood. We'd help each other—one of us would create a little distraction so that the other one could slip a few dumplings into their shirt."

Listening to this story, Vic had a sudden flash of intense, retroactive shame for the petty jealousy he'd felt when Mac had first shown up at the Agency and flaunted his longstanding close relationship with Li Ann. Vic hadn't understood at the time how much of their closeness came from shared trauma. Fuck.

"So you can imagine," Li Ann was continuing, "that when he started skipping meals, I noticed."

"Ah," Vic said, "Yeah?"

"Sometimes he would sit at the table with us and just pick at his food. Other times he wouldn't show up at all. Not systematically, you understand—just once in a while."

"When did it start?" Vic asked. Not that he had any timeline to attach it to—he knew that Michael's abuse of Mac had been a factor from the very beginning, but he knew almost nothing in the way of details.

She thought for a moment. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "We were still fairly young. It probably wasn't in the first year, but maybe not long after that. Definitely he was fluent in Cantonese by then, because I remember the first time it happened—the first time he sat through dinner without really eating—I went up to his room afterwards and asked him about it. I asked him if he was sick, and he said no—though, I remember he did _look_ a little sick. Anyway, you have to understand, at that point in my life it was literally unthinkable to me that somebody just wouldn't be hungry. Especially Mac—because I _knew_ that he had the same fears I did about not having enough to eat. So I brought out the packet of sticky rice that I'd stolen at dinner, and I made him eat it."

"And he did?" Vic asked.

She nodded. "It took him a while. But he kept up his usual silly jokes the whole time, so I figured everything was fine." She sighed. "Knowing what I know now—he was probably hung over."

"And then it kept happening?" Vic asked.

"Periodically," she said. "The whole time we were with the Tangs. And I'd always sneak food to bring to him later, and make him eat it while I watched. In the later years I finally lost the compulsion to steal food for myself, but I'd always steal some for Mac on the nights he didn't eat. The funny thing is, we never _talked_ about it. I don't think I ever even asked him why he wasn't eating, after that first time. It just became a thing that we did."

"And you had no idea about the drinking?" Vic asked.

"Not at first, but I did when we were older. And actually, it wasn't all hangovers," Li Ann said. "That first time, it probably was, though I didn't realize it at the time because I was only thirteen or fourteen. But by the time we were in our late teens, early twenties—I knew what a hangover was, and I definitely knew that was why he didn't want to eat sometimes. Anyway, occasionally he'd actually get sick when I made him eat. That was hard to miss."

"It would be," Vic agreed, blinking. He really wasn't sure where this story was going, but it was a troubling slice of history.

"Other times, though..." she trailed off, looking pensive. "He'd skip dinner, and I'd go up to his room after, and he'd just be sitting on the bed staring into space. He'd have this hollow look in his eyes. Only as soon as he _saw_ me looking at him, he'd grin, lift his shoulders, make a joke. He obviously didn't want to eat on those nights, but he couldn't _tell_ me that, so he'd eat if I sat there and chatted with him. I had no idea what was going on, and I never asked. I guess on some level I understood that it was part of the no-go zone."

"No-go zone?" Vic repeated.

"Our pasts," she said. "Our nightmares. And, in retrospect—Michael."

"But Michael was with you the whole time," Vic pointed out.

She nodded. "What I'm just realizing now—and I mean _right_ now, at this moment—is that those days when Mac didn't want to eat but he wasn't hung over, those were probably the days that Michael had hurt him."

Vic felt a chill go down his spine. "Oh," he said.

"I said earlier," she said, "that I sort of felt like I was Mac's guardian, even though I was younger than him. I said that without thinking—I was just responding to your comment. But now that I'm really looking back, I'm realizing that it was true in a _lot_ of ways. Bringing him food was part of it, and reminding him about his responsibilities, and trying to talk him out of doing really risky things."

"Not unlike now..." Vic observed.

She shrugged. "But the other thing I'm just realizing now is that I was trying to protect him from Michael all along."

Vic frowned. "You said you didn't know what was going on."

"I didn't." Her tone was very low; she sounded serious, and reflective. "I was completely unaware of the abuse, and I didn't realize that they were lovers—" she caught Vic's look and backtracked on the word, "—I mean that they were _sexually involved_ , until that time I saw them kissing. That was when Mac was about twenty years old. But." She bit her lip, and gazed into the distance. "I think I started intervening between them almost from the beginning. There was just this ... _energy_ between them sometimes. A certain way that Michael would snap at Mac, and Mac would tense up—or Michael would come at him in training, start hitting him way too hard."

"You said that you didn't know that Michael was hurting Mac," Vic reminded her, feeling a bit shocked.

"Well, I don't count _training_ ," Li Ann said. "Anyway, whenever those things happened, I'd try to interpose myself between them. I'd get Michael talking about something else, pull his focus away from Mac. Or maybe I'd _literally_ step between them, to stop Michael from hitting Mac. I was never afraid of Michael until the very end. The day he finally showed me what he was capable of was the day I agreed to run away with Mac."

Vic felt like he had a lot more perspective on Li Ann and Mac's years with the Tangs now, and how they'd survived them. They'd protected each other as best they could—and Li Ann hadn't necessarily thought of this, but it was obvious to Vic that Mac had kept Michael's focus off of her for a decade, to her great benefit —and they'd more-or-less kept each other sane.

Vic had been an idiot to feel jealous of the two of them. Fuck, had he _ever_ lacked a proper understanding of their context.

"So you see," Li Ann said, "how devastating it's been for me to realize, from what you and the Director have just told me, that I completely failed to protect Mac this year."

"Um," Vic gave her a sharp look. "You didn't fail. That wasn't your _job_. Li Ann, he's not a child."

"I didn't imply that he was," she said. "He didn't get to be a child even when he _was_ a child—same as me. He figured out how to survive on the street when he was thirteen years old, so yes, on some level he is obviously capable of taking care of himself. But there are ways in which he's really broken. And I _knew_ that, but when he came back from the dead and showed up in Canada, I chose to _un_ -know it. I told myself that this was a new life, and I let him convince me that everything was fine."

"He's very convincing," Vic pointed out.

"He wouldn't have been able to fool _me_ ," Li Ann said, "if I hadn't been willing to be fooled."

Vic didn't want Li Ann to descend into miserable self-recriminations. But he also wasn't sure if she would welcome him telling her what he really thought, which was that her experiences had left _her_ a little broken, too. To whatever extent she had wilfully ignored the subtle signs of Mac's internal struggles over the past year—and they _had_ been subtle, Vic had certainly missed them entirely—she had probably only done so out of self-protection. Vic knew that she'd been working hard to rebuild herself after running from the Tangs. That couldn't be easy, and she was doing it alone. She'd never asked for help. That probably hadn't left her with a lot of left-over capacity to wonder what was going on with Mac.

Despite their many differences, Li Ann and Mac also had some deep similarities.

Vic decided that it would be best to focus on the way forward. "It turned out okay. He made it through the year," he pointed out. "And now we're _both_ going to help him, and it's going to get better. I promise."

They shared another hug, and Li Ann said, "I believe you. Everything seems a lot more manageable when you're around."

Vic took a breath, feeling the weight of responsibility settle on him with those words.

Well, but that was okay. Vic had plenty of capacity to care for others; he _needed_ to have someone to care for, in a pretty deep way. He could be there for Mac _and_ Li Ann, no problem. "Three Musketeers," he murmured, and she smiled.


	22. Chapter 22

Vic had only ever seen one still photo of Ebony Stalking, at their initial briefing nearly two weeks ago.

In real life, she was drop-dead gorgeous.

Vic supposed that if he hadn't completely revised his understanding of his own sexuality in the past week, he might be feeling conflicted right now about finding a man so stunningly beautiful. Luckily, though, he _had_ , so he was free to appreciate the aesthetics.

Ebony wore a white sequined gown that shimmered like fresh snow in the spotlights. It was sleeveless; her dark skin glowed in contrast to the glittering white. The flowing skirt was floor-length, but slit up nearly to the top of her thigh on one side. She was wearing stiletto heels—also white and sparkling—and her calves were amazing.

She flung one arm dramatically in the air, tipped up her chin, and called out to the packed crowd, "Welcome, my darlings, to the Night of the Two-Ring Circus!"

The crowd erupted into wild hoots and cheers.

Vic scrunched a little lower in his seat. He was—quite deliberately—dressed to stick out like a sore thumb. Not that he was the only one in plaid flannel; but Vic quite obviously wasn't a butch lesbian or a Kurt Cobain fanboy.

He wasn't really sure if it was useful for him to stay in character, but after two weeks undercover it had seemed like the thing to do. He'd slunk in, paid his fifteen dollars' cover in crumpled bills at the door, and picked a seat near the centre while avoiding eye contact with everyone around him.

All he really had to do to protect the fundraiser, he reminded himself, was to sit here for two hours and not shoot anybody.

He would tell 3-Jay that he'd chickened out. If all went well, 3-Jay would lose his shit and give Vic the excuse he needed to take him down.

Ebony gave a short speech, explaining the purpose of the fundraiser and a few details about the legal work currently being pursued by same-sex marriage activists. The crowd cheered the end of every sentence. Vic kept quiet, and felt the weight of the gun hidden under his thick flannel jacket.

Then Ebony introduced the first act, and the show got underway.

It was more of a variety show than Vic had expected. Of course there were several elegant drag queens performing power-ballad lip syncs. A troupe of drag kings did a comedic interpretation of Leonard Cohen's _I'm Your Man_. A well-endowed female performer did a burlesque dance with flowing scarves, culminating in an impressive fifteen seconds of twirling nipple tassels. There was even a literal two-ring circus act—a couple of acrobats came onstage with giant steel hoops, which they proceeded to roll around with themselves _inside_. They held their bodies rigid, starfish-style, with their hands and feet braced on the rims, and tumbled around the stage like dropped pennies, somehow never falling off the edge or bumping into each other.

Despite the awkward circumstances, Vic found that he was really enjoying the show. It was definitely different from anything he'd ever experienced before. But then, when was the last time he'd been to a live show of _any_ kind?

Mac and Li Ann's act came about an hour in. Ebony introduced them: "Put your hands together for Jasmine and Lee Way, performing _Tango Tangle_ —with special guest, Mac the Security Guard!"

Vic remembered how Ben had looked when Vic had dropped Mac off at the movie theatre in the early afternoon. Vic never would've recognized him onstage if he hadn't known it was the same person. Afternoon-Ben had been a short, balding man in nondescript beige slacks and a corduroy jacket. Jasmine-onstage was taller (that would be the heels), had a full head of raven-black hair done up in a tight bun (that would be a wig), and filled out her flowing red dress with an impressive hourglass shape (padding, it had to be, but Vic couldn't see how it was done—it _looked_ natural).

But really, Vic only had eyes for Mac.

Mac was wearing a large-weave fishnet shirt and black leather pants. His eyes were outlined with thick black eyeliner. He came onto the stage with an easy grin, sketched a quick bow to the crowd, and held out his hands to Jasmine as the music started.

Vic had known that Mac and Li Ann were doing a tango thing with Ben—they'd been talking about their rehearsals for the past two weeks—but somehow he'd never stopped to think about Mac _dancing_.

It was a whole different kind of movement from what Vic was used to. Sure, Mac embodied a kind of grace when he fought, but this was something else entirely—formal, stylized, artistic. Vic bit his lip and held his breath, feeling his heart catch at the beauty of it.

God, he wanted to leap up on the stage right now and ravish Mac with kisses.

His feelings about Mac right now were a swirling mess of worry and love. Mac looked so _together_ up there on stage, so relaxed and joyful, but Vic knew that that was just as much of a costume as Benjamin's wig and curves.

Costume? Maybe that was the wrong way to think about it. Ben dressed as a woman, presumably, because it somehow felt like a true expression of his inner self. And Mac's smiles and jokes and lighthearted teasing weren't _fake_ ; that's who he really was, or at least who he _wanted_ to be.

Li Ann came onstage, stalking dramatically towards the dancing pair. Vic had seen her in drag last week, but his breath caught again at her fierce masculinity. She had slicked-back hair, a painted-on moustache, and she'd paired combat boots with a Secret Service suit. She caught Mac's shoulder and flung him away from Jasmine; Mac tumbled away in a dramatic flailing roll that would have worried Vic if he hadn't understood how entirely choreographed it was.

Soon Mac was back on his feet and challenging Li Ann for Jasmine's hand. Mac and Li Ann postured at each other, hilariously, and Jasmine scrambled to the side of the stage and picked up a pair of wooden blocks. Vic didn't understand what that was about until Li Ann threw a wild punch at Mac's head. Watching carefully and knowing them as he did, Vic saw that Mac threw his own head back at the same time that Li Ann's fist stopped just short of where Mac's cheek had been. At the exact moment of supposed impact, Jasmine slammed her wooden blocks together, making a fairly credible sound effect.

The fight heated up after that. Vic had watched Li Ann and Mac spar together lots of times. Sometimes they went freestyle, wearing padding so that they wouldn't hurt each other, and sometimes they practised set sequences of more complicated moves. This was like the latter, only more so. They spun around each other, jumped, kicked high and low. Every time one of them pretended to land a blow, Jasmine knocked the blocks together with perfect timing to simulate the sound of impact. It was pretty impressive; Vic could see why they'd had to do all those rehearsals.

Finally Li Ann knocked Mac out (supposedly) with a spinning kick to the head. Mac tumbled dramatically to the floor of the stage (Vic winced, even though he knew intellectually that Mac knew how to fall without hurting himself), and Li Ann claimed Jasmine's hand. With an arch, satisfied look, Li Ann led Jasmine back into the tango. They performed a bunch of fancy-looking steps and turns, and then, to the gasps of the crowd, Li Ann _lifted_ Jasmine, and finally swept her into a floor-deep dip.

The music ended. Mac climbed back to his feet, joined hands with Li Ann and Jasmine all in a row, and the three of them stepped up to the front of the stage.

Ebony emerged from the wing with her microphone, and came to stand at the end of their line, next to Li Ann. "Let's hear it for Jasmine, Lee Way, and Mac!" she said, and the crowd exploded into applause and cheers. Mac was grinning about as wide as Vic had ever seen. Li Ann was looking a little more reserved, but pleased. Along with Jasmine, they bowed. Then, when the applause didn't die down immediately, they took a second bow—Mac and Jasmine had caught each other's eyes, and were laughing.

They stood up from the second bow, and collectively took a step backwards downstage. Ebony, still at the front, raised her microphone and said, "Up next—"

But the smile had dropped off Mac's face and he was squinting intensely at something in the crowd—behind Vic, and to his left.

Then things happened fast.

Mac yelled, "Gun!"

Mac and Li Ann moved to cover Jasmine and Ebony and push them offstage, but Vic only glimpsed that movement out of the corner of his eye as he spun.

He heard a shot before he saw the shooter. People started to scream.

Vic's hand had found his own gun as he turned. He drew as he spotted the other gun, in the outstretched hand of a familiar pudgy blond man in a leather jacket. "Freeze!" Vic yelled into the chaos. "Everybody down!"

T-Rex. The shooter was T-Rex.

More people screamed, and now they were screaming about Vic, too. Some people were hitting the floor, but others were fleeing, and in the chaos Vic couldn't get a clear shot. Meanwhile T-Rex squeezed out two more shots towards the stage.

"Freeze, T-Rex!" Vic shouted, trying to move towards him. Everyone in Vic's immediate vicinity was trying to get away from him, but the folding chairs had become a chaotic obstacle course.

T-Rex must have heard his name. He glanced towards Vic and his eyes widened. Vic could see T-Rex processing the sight of the muzzle of Vic's gun pointing at him. But Vic _still_ couldn't get a clear shot—the people caught in the three rows between him and T-Rex were trying to run in all directions, bumping into each other and falling down.

T-Rex turned and started trying to wade his way through the panicking crowd, away from Vic and towards the exit. He still had his gun in his hand.

Vic realized that he was _not_ going to be able to get a clear shot, and his own gun was just adding to the panic. He stuffed it back in its holster and started vaulting over chairs.

* * *

"Let's hear it for Jasmine, Lee Way, and Mac!"

Linking hands with Li Ann on his right and Ben on his left, Mac bowed.

His face felt like it was going to split apart from grinning. He'd enjoyed all the rehearsals leading up to this, sure, they had been a nice change from his normal work—but holy fucking hell, performing onstage in front of an audience of two hundred people was _amazing_. It was a rush unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

For most of his life he'd been a criminal; after that, a secret agent. He'd lived and worked in the shadows. He took pride in his skills, but the best he could ever hope for in terms of validation was Li Ann or Vic giving him an approving smile when he picked a lock quickly. Or, in a debriefing following a successful case, the Director might express less than her usual amount of disappointment in him.

He'd never had _applause_.

Now the spotlights were hot on his face and the crowd's cheers were ringing in his ears, and he felt like he was floating.

Ben tugged at his hand. "Take a second bow," he said in an undertone. "They're still clapping."

Mac followed the instruction, drawing Li Ann along with him.

"That was _awesome_!" Mac said to Ben as they stood again. "I _love_ performing!"

"Ah," Ben said with a knowing laugh, "Now you have a taste for it."

That immediately made Mac feel melancholy, because he knew that he'd be vanishing from this life very soon—probably tonight. Like Cinderella after the ball.

As he stepped backwards, he squinted out past the lights at the mass of the audience, drinking in their love and approval while he still could. He wanted to fix this moment in his memory as firmly as possible. He wondered if he could manage to spot Vic.

Instead, he spotted a man standing up with a dull glint of metal in his outstretched hand.

Instantly, Mac was in agent mode. "Gun!" he yelled, already grabbing Ben to push him out of the line of fire. He saw Li Ann doing the same with Ebony on the other side.

A shot rang out and Mac felt a line of bright, fiery pain streaking across his right side. His adrenaline and his focus let him disregard it—the pain was _there_ , but he didn't have to _do_ anything about it, didn't need to contemplate what it meant. He kept shoving Ben toward the cover of the stage-left wing, yelling "Go, go, go!"

As soon as he had Ben in cover, he spun back around to see what was happening. Li Ann had Ebony behind the stage-right curtain, and was getting her to kneel behind a box of props.

Two more shots rang out.

Mac dared a glance out at the audience, crouching low at the edge of the curtain. Somebody had shut off the spotlights in the last couple of seconds, so it was a lot easier to see what was going on. Panicked people were running in all directions, but not quite randomly—there was a spot in the centre that everyone was trying to escape.

The man with the gun was running away, towards the exit. Without the spotlights blinding him, Mac realized that he recognized the guy—it was T-Rex, the marshmallow dinosaur. _Fuck_ , he wasn't supposed to have been here!

Mac thought about giving chase, but realized it would be useless—by the time he could get halfway through that mess of a crowd, the guy would be out the door.

Anyway, now Mac saw Vic trailing the guy through the crowd. So that was all right. It looked like Vic wouldn't _quite_ catch up before T-Rex made it to the exit, but he'd probably manage to run him down just outside the club.

He retreated from the curtain's edge, stood, and turned back to Ben. "Are you okay?" he asked quickly.

Ben's face was very white under his make-up, but he nodded. "Did you see what happened?" he asked in a shaky voice.

"Just one shooter," Mac said. "And he's running away. I think we're clear." He looked across the small stage and waved at Li Ann. "Okay over there?" he called, with a bit of trepidation. There had been three shots.

Li Ann waved back and gave him a thumbs-up. She swept the audience with a wary glance before apparently deciding it was safe; she ran across the open stage to join him.

At the same time, Ben said: "Mac, you're bleeding!"

* * *

"Let's hear it for Jasmine, Lee Way, and Mac!"

With her left hand clasped in Mac's right, Li Ann bowed. She was still breathing a little hard from the end of the dance, and she felt exhilarated.

The lights and the cheering were a little overwhelming, though.

Over on Mac's left, Benjamin said something, and they all took a second bow.

"That was _awesome_! I _love_ performing!" Mac crowed.

Benjamin laughed and said something about Mac developing a taste, and Li Ann hoped that he wasn't really, because this was _definitely_ not the sort of hobby that the Director would be willing to sign off on.

A moment later, there was an odd movement in the audience. Just as Li Ann was resolving the shape, catching the glint of metal, she felt Mac letting go of her hand and heard him yell, "Gun!"

She saw that Mac was covering Benjamin and pushing him towards the wing; she immediately did the same for Ebony Stalking, on the other side.

A shot rang out. Li Ann heard lots of screams in the audience, but nobody sounded like they'd been hit.

To Li Ann's relief, Ebony moved as quickly as Li Ann pushed her, without fighting it or asking questions. Behind the stage-right curtain there was a big wheeled wooden trunk full of props. It was the best thing available for cover, so Li Ann pulled Ebony down behind it.

Two more shots popped. This time, Li Ann heard them hit—they made divots in the cinder-block wall at the back of the stage.

She looked across the stage—Mac had Benjamin hidden stage-left, and Mac himself was peeking out around the curtain at the audience.

Li Ann turned to Ebony. "Are you all right?" she asked, although she was pretty sure that all the shots had missed.

"What the hell is going on?" Ebony asked in a rough masculine voice, very different from the playful falsetto she'd used while emceeing the show.

"There was a man with a gun," Li Ann said. "He may have come to kill you specifically. I think it's safer for you to stay here for the moment; don't break cover." She looked up, and saw Mac waving at her.

"Okay over there?" Mac called out.

She returned the wave, and gave him a thumbs-up. "Hang on," she said to Ebony. "I'm going to check what's happening."

She carefully moved out of cover just enough to take a peek at the audience. There was mass panic, but no sign of the shooter. She decided that she could risk a dash across the open stage.

A quick sprint and she was behind the stage-left curtain, next to where Mac and Benjamin were standing—just in time to hear Benjamin say, "Mac, you're bleeding!"

Li Ann followed Benjamin's shocked gaze to Mac's right side. The fishnet shirt was ripped, and underneath there were jagged, bloody edges of torn flesh. Blood was smeared and running all down Mac's side.

"Huh," Mac said, with an expression of detached surprise. "I've never been shot before. That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." He gingerly reached across himself with his left hand and touched the wound. He winced at the contact, and quickly withdrew his hand. Then he held his hand up in front of his face, fingers spread, and his eyes widened as though he was shocked to see the blood on them.

Li Ann was already halfway through shrugging off her jacket, with the intention of using it to put pressure against the wound, when she saw Mac's eyes roll backwards. He began to crumple.

"Shit," Li Ann yelped, and grabbed for him. Unfortunately her arms were tangled in the jacket, and her grasping fingers fell short of catching Mac as he went down. 

Luckily, Ben had also noticed Mac's collapse, and had had the same impulse. He, at least, managed to get between Mac and the floor, so Mac's head just thudded gently against Ben's bosom instead of cracking on the stage.

"Lay him down," Li Ann instructed Ben quickly, getting her jacket off properly this time and wadding it up. "Can you find something to put under his legs?" She pressed the jacket against the wound on Mac's side.

"Hang on," Ben said. He had his cell phone out—Li Ann heard him dial three digits. "Yes, hello. I'm calling from the Rainbow Room on Church Street. A man has been shot."

Li Ann patted Mac's cheek with her free hand. He didn't react. "Come on Mac," she said. "Open your eyes."

"Yes," Ben was saying in the background. "Less than a minute ago. He's unconscious. He's lying down. We're applying pressure. It's on his right side. I'm not sure."

Li Ann felt somebody squeeze her shoulder. She startled, but didn't let go of the jacket. Then Ebony moved into her field of vision. "Sorry," Ebony said. "I said, can I help? I don't think you heard me the first time."

Li Ann looked around wildly. "I told you to stay in cover."

"There haven't been any more shots," Ebony pointed out. "And Larry just told me that he saw two men with guns run out of the front door of the club."

"The 911 lady says we should elevate his feet," Ben said to them. "And find a blanket or something to put over him."

Ebony stood up and hollered, using her full masculine voice: "Somebody get over here with a coat! Mac's been shot!"

Li Ann didn't quite manage to track how it happened, but in a few moments there were two open winter coats draped over Mac—and over Li Ann's hands, where they were still pressing her own balled-up suit jacket against his side. Another coat got rolled up and placed under his ankles.

"Don't crowd them," Ben was saying.

Ebony crouched down next to Li Ann. "Are you okay there?" she asked. "Do you need to swap out with someone?"

Li Ann shook her head grimly.

"Why did you say that you thought they were here to kill me?" Ebony asked.

"Two of the bullets went into the wall right by us," Li Ann said. "A few seconds earlier, your head would have been there."

Ebony squeezed Li Ann's shoulder again. "Thanks," she said. "You reacted amazingly quickly. I think you may have saved my life." She eased back a bit. "Oh my God, I can't believe this is really happening."

Li Ann thought she heard sirens. A moment later, she was sure. "Somebody should go to the door," she said. "To meet the paramedics."

There was movement; Ebony was giving orders. Ben was still on the phone. "No," he was saying. "He hasn't woken up. Yes, he's still breathing."

Mac looked deathly pale. Li Ann supposed that his thick black eyeliner was exaggerating the effect. She felt concerned, but not desperately so. From what she'd seen, the wound didn't look that serious—the length of it had suggested a graze rather than a direct impact. She'd only heard three shots, and two of them had gone into the wall on her side of the stage, so she was pretty sure that Mac didn't have a bullet inside of him. It was worrying that he had passed out, though, and that he hadn't woken up yet.

Then someone was trying to pull her away from Mac. She bared her teeth at them. "Get your hands off me! I can't let go of him."

"Careful," Ben was saying, "I don't think she heard you the first time." Then Li Ann saw Ben crouching in front of her, on the other side of Mac. He'd put his phone away. "Li Ann, honey, the paramedics are here. They want to take over. It's safe to let go now."

She realized that a man in a paramedic's uniform was kneeling beside her and putting his gloved hands next to hers. "You did a good job of controlling the bleeding," the man said. "You can let go now; it's okay, I've got it."

Slightly embarrassed, she backed off. Ben gave her a hand up, and when she was on her feet, gave her a hug.

Li Ann realized that her knees were shaking.

"Actually, maybe you should sit down," Ben said. "Do you want to sit down?"

"No, I'm fine," Li Ann said. "This wasn't exactly my first shoot-out."

Oh, maybe she shouldn't have said that.

Ben gave her a slightly wild look, and laughed uncomfortably. "I'll ask you about that sometime later," he said. "Tomorrow, maybe. Because it sure as hell was mine." He held up his hand, as though he were admiring his shiny red fake nails. "God, look, my hand is shaking. _Fuck_."

The paramedics had transferred Mac onto a stretcher, and strapped an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. "Is there somebody here who knows him?" one of them asked. "Someone who can ride along in the ambulance?"

"Me," Li Ann said, at the same time as Ben said, "Li Ann." He nudged her forward.

"What's your relationship?" the paramedic asked.

"I'm his sister," she said.

"They're adopted," Ben added, in response to the paramedic's skeptical look. "Don't be an asshole about it." Then he gave Li Ann another quick hug. "You've got this," he said. "We'll meet you at the hospital as soon as we can."


	23. Chapter 23

By the time Vic made it to the hospital, three and a half hours had elapsed since the shooting, and he was frantic with worry.

He'd caught up with T-Rex just half a block from the club, and he'd disarmed and immobilized him without difficulty. Complications had ensued when the first squad cars came screaming in about thirty seconds later, and Vic found himself getting arrested along with T-Rex.

To be fair, T-Rex's running stream of profanity-laced accusations did seem to peg Vic as an erstwhile accomplice. And Vic did have two guns on him when the police threw him against the wall and patted him down.

He wasn't too bothered by the arrest, though—he knew he'd get it sorted out eventually.

Vic had been cuffed in the back of a squad car, awaiting departure, when he'd seen the ambulance pull up to the front of the club.

He'd watched with some concern as the paramedics ran into the club, pushing a gurney. There'd been three shots, and Vic hadn't had the time to see if anyone had been hit. Not to mention the possibility that people had been hurt or trampled during the chaotic evacuation.

The paramedics re-emerged a couple of minutes later. There was someone in the gurney now, wrapped in blankets and with an oxygen mask over their face. Vic couldn't see who it was, although he caught a glimpse of curly brown hair.

Then Li Ann emerged from the club, rigid with tension, and followed the gurney and the paramedics into the ambulance.

After that, time moved like molasses.

Vic had to wait until he was alone in an interview room with a couple of detectives before he could give the Agency's emergency code phrase, and then he had to wait two hours for the arrival of somebody with high enough security clearance to talk to him. Once _that_ finally happened, Vic had to explain the whole story about T-Rex and 3-Jay.

Now Vic was _finally_ getting out of a cab in front of the ER of the hospital nearest to the club. He didn't even know for sure that it was the right hospital—it was just his best guess—but actually that concern was settled as soon as he spotted the Director and Dobrinsky loitering just outside the entrance.

"Hey," he said, jogging up to them. "Is Mac in there?"

The Director nodded, and Vic felt a rush of relief; that meant that Mac was _alive_. He tried to push past the Director, but she caught his wrist.

"What happened to the shooter?" she asked.

"He's in custody," Vic said tersely. "And from what I hear he's leaking like a sieve; he's already given them probable cause to go arrest 3-Jay. Do you know how Mac is doing?"

"He's fine," the Director said, sounding largely unconcerned. "The bullet barely grazed him."

Vic relaxed only fractionally; that didn't match what he'd seen. "I saw him getting loaded into the ambulance. He looked unconscious, and they had him on oxygen."

"I heard he passed out cold at the sight of his own blood," Dobrinsky offered with a bit of a smirk. "They just don't make secret agents like they used to, I tell ya."

That was ... plausible, actually. Mac had a thing about blood. Vic still wanted to see with his own eyes that he was okay, though. "Hey, why are you two waiting out here in the cold?" he finally thought to ask.

The Director sighed. "You'll see."

* * *

Inside the ER waiting room was bright, glittering chaos. It was packed with drag kings and queens, acrobats, burlesque dancers—all still in costume. Many were holding shiny get-well-soon balloons, or bunches of flowers. The mood was somewhere midway between festival and funeral; some people were chatting animatedly, while others were quiet and worried-looking.

There were other people in the waiting room too—people wearing ordinary clothes and casting bemused or concerned glances at the Two-Ring Circus folks. So not everyone here was from the club; but how many people from the club had been brought here?

Vic winced. He tapped the shoulder of the nearest person who he recognized from the fundraiser—it was the woman who had done the dance with the scarves. She was, probably wisely, wearing her winter coat over her costume, but Vic remembered her face. "Hey," he said. "Do you know how many people were hurt in the shooting at the club?"

She turned, and looked confused for a moment as she presumably failed to recognize him. Then she blinked and said, "Oh, were you in the audience?"

Vic nodded.

"There was just one guy who had to be taken to the hospital. I know they treated a few people on-scene for shock and bruises. Are you looking for somebody?"

"So, wait, why's everyone here?" Vic asked, gesturing at the overcrowded room.

"Well, Mac was _shot_ ," she said. "The guy from the tango number. We all decided to come here after the police interviewed us. To see that he's okay, and—you know. To support him."

Vic felt confused. Mac had talked about Ben a lot, but he'd never mentioned getting to know any of the other performers. "Do you know him very well?" he asked.

"Never met him before tonight," she admitted with a shrug. "But we've got to stick together at times like this, you know? Fuck, I still can't believe that really happened." She frowned. "Sorry, who did you say you were looking for?"

Just then, Vic heard his name being called from across the room. He looked over and spotted Jasmine—well, Ben, still in drag—waving frantically. "Gotta go," he said to the dancer. "Thanks for the help."

"Thank God," Ben said when Vic arrived at his side. "You got my messages? Sorry there were so many. I hope you didn't stop listening after the first three. I was a little panicky when I left them."

"Uh, messages?" Vic said.

"On your phone," Ben said. "You didn't get them? How did you know to come here?"

"I was at the fundraiser," Vic said.

"Oh," Ben said. After a moment's thought, he looked even more confused. "In that case, where have you been?"

"Ah, I was in the audience near the shooter," Vic said. "I ran after him when he left. I ended up in a very long police interview." It was entirely possible that there were people in this room who had seen Vic pull a gun, or seen him get cuffed and thrown in the back of a squad car. If he had to expand his story to account for those facts, he would—but there was no need to do so prematurely.

"Oh my God," Ben said. "Are _you_ okay?"

Vic nodded. "Have you heard anything about how Mac is doing?"

"No," Ben said. "They won't tell us anything. And Li Ann hasn't come out."

Vic realized that he probably had more up-to-date news than anyone in the room, via the Director and her inside sources. Unfortunately, he couldn't share what he knew without somehow explaining how he knew it; so he just grimaced, and said, "I can try asking."

"You can try," Ben agreed, not looking optimistic. "You realize, though, that you don't have any legal status."

Just then, there was a bit of commotion over by the door into the treatment areas. Vic looked over just in time to see Mac and Li Ann emerging, before the whole room broke into wild cheers.

Mac and Li Ann stopped short, looking quite shocked at their reception. Mac was haggard. His eyes were lined like a raccoon's—Vic remembered that he'd been wearing eyeliner for the show, and now it had smudged all over the place. He had white fabric bandages wrapped all around his torso, and there was obvious extra padding on his right side. He had a white dress shirt draped over his shoulders, unbuttoned. The shirt was probably Li Ann's; she was stripped down to a black tank top. Mac's arm was over her shoulders, and he was leaning on her for support—but he was leaving the ER on his own two feet, so obviously the Director had been correct about the injury not being serious.

After about two full seconds of blank, shocked confusion, Mac broke into a great big grin. "Uh, hi everybody," he said as the cheering died down. "Were you waiting for me?"

There was laughter, and some more cheers and whistles, and it looked like Mac and Li Ann were about to get mobbed. Vic launched himself across the room and made sure that he got there first.

"Vic!" Mac said, in a tone of delighted surprise. "When did you get here?"

"Oh my God, Mac," Vic said. And he didn't have any idea what else to say; so he kissed him.

The cheers and whistles were even louder this time.

It wasn't a long kiss; Vic felt pretty weird about kissing for an audience, even if he was nearly floating from the relief of finding Mac basically safe and sound.

Then Ben was at his side saying, "Mac, it's so good to see that you're okay! I am completely overwhelmed by what you did. Nobody's ever _taken a bullet for me_ before, fuck."

"Ah, don't worry about it," Mac said. "All in a day's work. I am a security guard, after all."

Ebony Stalking had approached them as well. She held out a hand for Mac to shake—hugs were obviously out of the question. "That was definitely above-and-beyond," she said. "I think Casey should give you a raise."

"Mac," Ben said, "I'd like you to meet my mother."

Vic looked over in surprise, and saw that they'd been joined by a short, beaming, white-haired woman in a blue pants suit, who bore a striking resemblance to Ben—or maybe more so to Jasmine.

"Mac, let me kiss you," she said. "You saved my son's life. I don't know how I could ever repay you. You have to let me have you over for dinner."

Looking a little overwhelmed himself, now, Mac ducked down enough to let Ben's mom plant kisses on both of his cheeks. When he straightened up he winced—barely, but Vic caught it.

So did Li Ann, obviously, who looked at him with concern. "We need to get you home," she said.

"I'll call a cab," Vic said.

"I can drive you," Ben offered quickly. "It's the least I can do."

Vic and Li Ann shared a quick, panicky look. Ben had already gotten pretty entangled in their lives, but letting him find out where Mac _lived_ was a whole other level of cover-straining.

"That won't be necessary," said a smooth, feminine voice behind Vic. He turned around and saw the Director, who was showing an ID card and badge, and was not making direct eye contact with him. "Superintendent Diana Grey, Ontario Provincial Police. I'd just like to ask a few questions. I can also offer you a drive."

"Ah, okay," Vic said. Well, it looked like they were about to be extracted.

"I'll need you," she said, pointing at Vic, "and you," Li Ann, "and you," Mac, "and you and you," she finished, waving her gloved fingers at Ben and at Ebony Stalking.

Vic wondered what she was playing at, but obviously he couldn't ask.

"We already talked to the Toronto PD," Ben said, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, things are happening here on a whole other level," the Director said. "But I promise I won't take up too much of your time." She beckoned, and headed for the door.

"Mom, will you be okay driving home on your own?" Ben quickly asked his mother, handing her a set of car keys.

"Don't worry about me," she said, patting his cheek. "And tell you what—I'll take care of the rest of these kids. Anybody who doesn't want to go home can come to my place for the night. I'll make sure they all get a good breakfast."

"Thanks, Mom," Ben said, kissing her on the cheek. "See you soon, I hope."

At that point, realizing that they were about to head out into the sub-zero January night and Li Ann was wearing only a tank top, Vic shrugged out of his coat and tried to hand it to her.

She shook her head. "Better give it to Mac. I'll take my shirt back."

"We're getting straight into a car," Mac said. "I'm okay."

"Give him your coat," Li Ann told Vic firmly. "You know, we would have been out of here over an hour ago, except they were worried because he was starting to run a fever and they couldn't figure out why. _Finally_ he thought to mention that he's had the flu for three days."

"The drugs are wearing off," Mac admitted ruefully.

"Oh my God, Mac," Vic sort of groaned. Then he narrowed his eyes and touched Mac's cheek. "Mac? Look at me."

Mac obeyed, with a puzzled, uncomfortable intensity.

"Tell me about the wolf situation," Vic said quietly. " _Before_ we leave the hospital."

"Oh," Mac said. He swallowed. "Uh, okay." His gaze slid sideways, obviously taking in his audience—Li Ann, Ben _and_ Ebony, and the Director waiting impatiently just out of earshot. Vic realized that he didn't have much hope of a full accounting of Mac's symptoms under the circumstances, but he wanted at least a little reassurance that leaving the hospital wasn't a terrible idea. 

"Um, I'm feeling pretty crappy, actually," Mac said quietly. "But a doctor _literally_ just told me that I could go home, so I think I'm basically fine. Only, it would be good to sit down pretty soon."

Vic took half a second to mentally translate from Mac-speak into regular-person—a skill that Vic had been very quickly developing—and realized with alarm that 'it would be good to sit down pretty soon' probably meant 'I'm about to faint.'

"Okay, let's do that," he said quickly, and with a firm but gentle touch directed Mac into an empty chair immediately to his left.

He knew that he'd read the situation correctly when Mac, rather than protesting or acting confused, just braced his elbows on his knees and lowered his head onto his hands.

"What just happened?" Ben asked. "Mac, are you okay?"

"Just a bit dizzy," Mac mumbled into his hands.

"I _told_ you we should've taken that wheelchair," Li Ann said to him.

Vic looked at Ebony and Ben, who were hovering, looking worried. "Do you think one of you could get us a wheelchair?" he asked.

"No problem," Ebony said, and headed off, stiletto heels clacking on the tiles.

The Director came back over. "Having difficulties?" she asked.

"Nope," Mac said into his hands. "Everything's fine."

"Wow, that really is compulsive for you, isn't it?" Vic remarked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"He didn't get a transfusion," Li Ann mentioned. "They said there wasn't quite enough blood loss to require it."

"Maybe the police interview could wait until tomorrow?" Ben suggested.

"Well, I have the limo waiting," the Director said. "I might as well at least give you all a ride."

Ebony came back with a wheelchair at that point. They got Mac into the chair, Li Ann got her shirt back, and Vic gave Mac his coat. Since Vic was a bit more broad-shouldered than Mac, it fit acceptably loosely over the bandages, even zipped up.

Then, en masse, they made the short trip across the waiting room, out the door, and half-way down the hospital's driveway, to where a black stretch limo was waiting with Dobrinsky in the driver's seat.

The Director opened the door, and waved them all in ahead of her.

Vic made sure that Mac got in first, and Vic went next. That way Vic was on Mac's uninjured side.

The limo had two bench-style seats facing each other. Li Ann slipped in next, in the backwards-facing seat immediately across from Mac. Ben got in next to her, and Ebony sat next to him, leaving the seat on Vic's left for the Director—who pulled the door shut after her, and said to Dobrinsky, "Drive."

There were a few moments of awkward silence, as everyone eyed the Director and she failed to say anything enlightening.

Then Vic felt Mac give a quick shudder. He glanced over just in time to see Mac pressing the back of his wrist against his upper lip, and silently stifling a sneeze.

That was immediately followed by Mac clutching his injured side and letting out a gasping string of rapid Cantonese. Based on both the context and Li Ann's raised eyebrow, Vic guessed that had been some pretty R-rated swearing.

"Well, that's gonna suck," Mac said ruefully in English after catching his breath for a moment. He turned to Vic. "I don't suppose you brought the cold medicine?"

Vic shook his head. "Why would I have? I didn't even realize you were still on it today." He frowned. "You shouldn't take any when you get home, either. You need to sleep."

Mac tilted his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. "I can take a sedative," he said.

"Oh hell no," Vic said. And then lowered his voice to a whisper to try to give illusion of privacy, although clearly everybody in the back of the limo was hearing this whole conversation. "You're not mixing Valium with whatever painkillers you're on right now, Mac. Just ... _no_."

"What painkillers?" Mac asked, sounding slightly bitter. "All they gave me was fucking Tylenol."

Li Ann cleared her throat. "I may have mentioned his history to the doctor," she said quietly.

Vic guessed that Li Ann _thought_ she was being discreetly vague, but the quick look of concern that Ben shot Mac made it clear that he could infer exactly what kind of history would prevent a doctor from prescribing stronger painkillers.

There followed a brief back-and-forth exchange in Cantonese. From Li Ann's and Mac's mutual scowls, Vic guessed it was an argument. At the end of it, Li Ann looked out the window, her lips pressed into a thin line, and Mac clenched his fists in his lap.

Vic touched Mac's nearer fist, and then kind of squirmed his fingers inside of it. Mac relaxed a bit, and let Vic hold his hand.

"You're gonna be okay," Vic said quietly—more a promise than a prediction.

"Boys," the Director said, with an amused lilt, "Am I detecting a brand new dynamic at play here?"

Vic tracked her gaze to his and Mac's linked hands, and suddenly realized that the Director didn't know yet about him and Mac. Vic had deliberately avoided the topic when he'd talked to her earlier in the day, and apparently she'd only come into the ER after the kiss.

Vic's first impulse was to snatch his hand away and try to pretend that the Director had been seeing things, but luckily his thinking-brain quashed that one before it happened.

His new relationship with Mac was real, it was important, and ... it was time to come out to his boss.

"Ah, yeah," Vic said. "This is a thing."

He felt Mac relax and lean against him, and only then did he realize that Mac had gone very tense following the Director's question, during Vic's hesitation.

Vic thought that maybe he'd just passed a test.

"Excuse me, Superintendent?" Ben said, sounding a bit wary. "You haven't asked for any of our addresses yet."

"Oh," the Director said. "Indeed I haven't."

"You said you were with the OPP?" Ebony mentioned, starting to look edgy. "You wouldn't mind showing us that ID again, would you?"

"Not a problem," the Director said. She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket, and pulled out a _stack_ of ID cards, which she proceeded to flip through ostentatiously. "Let's see here. RCMP ... Toronto PD ... DND ... Coast Guard ... CSIS ..." As she shuffled the deck, she held up each card long enough that everyone could clearly see her official-looking picture on it. Vic, sitting next to her, caught glimpses of the names, too, enough to see that each one was different. "There we are," she said finally, with satisfaction, "OPP." She handed it over to Ebony, who was staring at her wide-eyed.

"What the hell is going on here?" Ebony asked, not even looking at the card. "Who are you?"

"Where are you taking us?" Ben added, sharply.

"Maybe this one will help," the Director said, turning over the final card in her stack and handing it across to Ben.

Ben and Ebony looked at it.

"This is just a shiny grey maple leaf on a black background," Ben said, sounding confused.

"Yes," the Director said, retrieving the card and easing back with a sharp-toothed grin. "Actually, I work for a branch of the civil service that doesn't _have_ a name. And Li Ann, Mac and Vic all work for me."

Ben and Ebony both looked over at the three agents, wearing matching expressions of confused shock.

Mac lifted his free hand to make a little finger-cascading wave. "Surprise," he said with a weak smile.

"What the _hell_?" Ben said. "Li Ann? Mac? Is this true?"

Li Ann gave a sheepish shrug. "Sorry," she said. "We were undercover."

Speaking of which, their cover was sure as hell blown now—by the Director. Vic couldn't even begin to guess what her goal was here. As usual when the Director was involved, he resigned himself to getting strung along without proper instructions, and finding out what it was all about later if he was lucky.

The whites of Ebony's eyes were very wide. "You're _secret agents_?" she said.

"I can't believe this," Ben said faintly.

"There had been threats against Ebony and the fundraiser," the Director said. "I sent Li Ann and Mac to the club to provide protection, and I sent Vic to investigate the source of the threats." She shifted in her seat so that she could pin Vic with a glare. "Speaking of which—how the hell did that shooter slip through? I thought that you knew all of 3-Jay's plans."

Vic grimaced. "T-Rex wasn't supposed to be there tonight. 3-Jay sent me _instead_ of him. But I guess that T-Rex was pissed off at me for stealing his martyrdom, so he decided on his own to show up and reclaim it."

"Oh well," the Director said, rolling her shoulders. "All's well that ends well, I suppose. You eliminated the threat, eventually, and nobody got shot except for Mac."

"So, wait," Ben said, looking at Li Ann and Mac. "You two have been _lying_ to me? The whole time? About everything? About being fostered together in Hong Kong, all that awful childhood stuff, Mac's abusive ex? What the hell was all that about?"

The Director raised an eyebrow and pinned Li Ann and Mac, one at a time, with the same glare she'd recently given Vic. "It would seem," she said, "that my _secret agents_ have been lying to you considerably _less_ than I would have preferred."

"Basically everything we told you was true," Mac clarified, shooting a guilty look towards the Director. "We just left out some ... details."

"Such as the fact that the foster family was a Triad gang," Li Ann added, hunching her shoulders.

The Director rolled her eyes. "Oh, do go on. I didn't realize that there were still a few scraps of your _secret identities_ that you hadn't yet shared with the whole class."

"You're the one who brought Benjamin and Ebony along with us and told them that we were agents," Li Ann pointed out.

"True," the Director conceded. She turned to the two drag queens. "Here's my problem. I want my agents to be able to continue working in the Greater Toronto Area. Normally, at the end of a case, they would just—" she wiggled her fingers vaguely, "—fade away. But tonight's events were exceptionally public. Particularly in Mac's case, as evidenced by the, er, _crowd_ at the hospital."

"He's a hero," Li Ann glossed, reaching over to squeeze his leather-clad knee. She looked pleased.

"Quite," the Director said faintly, sounding considerably less pleased. "Thus the dilemma. If the hero of the hour were to suddenly mysteriously vanish, I worry that there might be questions. Unwanted attention."

"You want us to cover it up?" Ebony asked. "Give everybody some sort of explanation for why Mac and Li Ann stop showing up at the club?"

"Well, that's one possibility," the Director said.

"You aren't ... _recruiting_ us, are you?" Ben asked, looking appalled.

The Director let out a surprised laugh. "Ha ha, no. You have neither the skill sets nor the appropriate background."

"So what _do_ you want us to do?" Ebony asked.

"Bear with me for a moment here," the Director said. "I'll confess that this is more of an impulsive whim than a well-thought-out plan. But if the two of you are willing, it occurs to me that it _might_ be possible for Mac and Li Ann to stay in contact with the queer community. Continue attending events, perhaps develop some casual acquaintances. The two of you, knowing their real identities, could run interference where necessary. It would require a deft touch, and discretion..."

"We certainly understand discretion," Ben said, with a sideways glance at Ebony.

Mac looked wide-eyed at the Director. "Are you saying," he asked, "that you're going to let us have _friends_?"

"Yes," she said gently. "It's occurred to me recently that you might need some. Particularly," she added, glancing over at Ben, "in light of this afternoon's movie date."

"Wait, was that—" Ben looked back and forth between Mac and Vic, and then to the Director. "What was that really? Since you told me that he was an agent, I thought, in retrospect ... that he was there guarding me before the show?"

The Director shook her head. "You were never a named target."

"I used you as a way to get a connection to Ebony," Li Ann said grimly. Vic guessed that she was feeling pretty uncomfortable about revealing how operational her apparent friendship had been.

"I've had agents watching over _Ebony_ day and night for the past week," the Director added.

Ebony looked startled. "What? But you don't even know who I am."

"Uh, David Brooks," Mac said. "I figured it out last week after Ben said that thing about wanting a brief from you by Monday."

Ebony glared at Ben. "I _told_ you, no shop talk at the club."

"Sorry," Ben said faintly. "But how the hell did you get from there to his name?"

"I looked through fifteen thousand bar association membership files," Mac said. "And there went my Saturday morning."

Ebony was still looking disturbed, but Ben appeared impressed. "I _thought_ you were too smart to be stuck working as a ten-dollar-an-hour bouncer," he said. "I confess, I'd started brewing a long-term plan to convince you to go back to school. I guess _that's_ not in the cards now."

"Indeed," the Director murmured. "Please don't."

Then Ben turned to Vic. "But if Mac wasn't protecting me this afternoon—then I really was protecting him?"

"Yes," said the Director. "Let's take a moment to be perfectly frank. Well-adjusted people with unproblematic histories do not end up working as covert field agents for shadowy government organizations. Mac, in particular, is struggling with the psychological consequences of ... let's say, various events from his upbringing. His partners have recently become concerned about his potential for deliberate self-harm."

"Ah," Mac said, looking extremely trapped, "Do we have to talk about this? Actually?"

"Yes," the Director said. "For a few moments. Relax, Mr. Ramsey, and try not to hyperventilate."

Mac _had_ started breathing pretty fast and shallow, Vic realized. He wrapped an arm around Mac's shoulders and hugged him carefully. It seemed to help a bit.

"I think that their level of concern may be slightly exaggerated," the Director said. "And I'm starting to understand _why_ Victor, in particular, has suddenly become so remarkably protective." She turned towards Vic and Mac. "You're very cute together, by the way," she added, bemusedly. "In any case—" back to addressing the drag queens "— _slightly_ exaggerated, I said. But not unwarranted. There is a matter of precedent." She leaned forward, so that she could look past Vic to Mac. "Mac," she said, gentling her voice, "Tell me about that time that you overdosed in prison."

Vic noticed Ben not quite managing to hide his shocked reaction. Vic guessed that time spent in prison was one of those 'details' that Mac and Li Ann had left out when they were telling Ben their life stories.

"Could we maybe skip this part?" Mac said, in a thin voice. "It was stupid, okay? I've already told you about it. I promise not to do it again."

"I want you to explain why you did it," the Director said.

"There was no why," Mac said. "It was an accident."

"No it wasn't," the Director said. "Every time you convinced that guard to give you a hit in exchange for a blow job, you took half and saved half. After six weeks you took everything that you'd saved, all at once. You did it right after lights-out, when you expected to be uninterrupted for the next eight hours. Your intention was to die. I want to know why."

"Ah," Ben said, "maybe this is a conversation that Mac should be having with, say, a mental health professional?" He sounded a little freaked out.

"Mac," the Director said, "are you willing to talk about this with Patricia?"

Mac shook his head.

"So tell me why you decided to kill yourself."

Mac's shoulders hunched and he leaned harder into Vic's embrace. "I was alone," he said. It came out very quiet and flat. "With ... everything in my head."

The Director nodded. "Eighteen months' solitary confinement," she said to the group at large. "I told them it was a bad idea, but, well, I lacked jurisdiction."

"Wait," Vic said. "You told _them_? Them who? When?"

"I'd only been in prison for five months when you came for me," Li Ann recalled. "Why did it take you more than another year to get Mac out, if you knew that he was there?"

"I wanted you both," the Director said, "but I could only cut a deal for one of you, to start with. It took a great deal of delicately-applied pressure to finally gain me access to Mac. I did at least manage to get an agent in place, to keep an eye on him. Thus, the failure of his carefully-planned suicide attempt."

"Fucking hell," Mac said weakly. "That was _you_? You didn't do me any favours, you know. After that they changed the guard and I couldn't get _any_ drugs. Except for whatever the hell that stuff was that they started giving me, the tranquilizers."

She gave him another gentle look. "I came for you as soon as I could."

"You, uh, threatened to kill me," Mac recalled.

"I threatened to set you _free_ ," the Director reminded him, wryly. "I thought that would be enough to scare you into coming along with me."

Mac stared at her for a moment. Then he asked, "Why are we telling this story? What the hell do you want?"

"I wanted to know if I was right," the Director said. "About why you did it."

"And?" Mac said. His tone was challenging. Vic wasn't sure exactly what was happening between the Director and Mac right now, or why the Director had decided that she wanted the rest of them to witness it.

"I think I was," the Director said. "And I can promise you, Mac, that you will never have that experience again. You will never be alone like that. Ever. Again."

Vic could feel Mac starting to shiver. And Vic knew that there were several physical things going on right now that could explain that—he'd been shot, and he was sick—but based on the timing, Vic guessed that Mac was actually just completely overwhelmed by the Director's words.

Vic was also starting to suspect that tonight's limo ride was connected to the Director's promise that afternoon that she would support Vic and Li Ann in their efforts to protect Mac. Of course, like everything the Director did, this 'support' was turning out twisty, disorienting, and perplexing.

"W-what are you saying?" Mac asked. His voice shook a little, but not as much as his body was. Vic tightened his grip around Mac's shoulders, and Li Ann reached over to put a steadying hand on his knee.

The Director looked at him for a long moment, and her expression softened. "Everyone in this car wants to keep you safe," she said gently.

The radio grill crackled suddenly, and Dobrinsky's voice came through from the front. "Actually," he said, "I'm pretty indifferent."

The Director rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Mr. Dobrinsky, for undermining my dramatic, life-affirming speech. I really appreciate it." She sat back and cracked her knuckles. "Okay, let's get specific." She addressed Mac directly again. "Li Ann and, apparently, _Vic_ , care about you very much and are prepared to make sure that you are _literally_ never alone until they're satisfied that you're not a suicide risk anymore. And Vic, as you know, is a worrywart. So get used to pissing with the door open, I guess."

"Ah, _that_ is really not necessary," Mac editorialized, his tone rising into a bit of a squeak.

"Right," Li Ann agreed. "We can talk to you just fine through the bathroom door."

"Dobrinsky," the Director went on, "will keep you company if I order him to."

"True," he crackled through the grill. "And I still have _so much_ marching band music to share with you."

"Benjamin," she continued, "I would assume, remains available for the occasional dinner or a movie."

Ben nodded, keeping a steady gaze on Mac. This all must be a lot for him to take in, Vic reflected, but he seemed to be holding up well.

"Ebony Stalking..." the Director trailed off momentarily. "Well, to be honest I just included her because I thought that Benjamin would be able to cope with all this black ops stuff a bit better if he had a friend along for the ride."

Ben actually let out a sharp laugh. "I don't think you're wrong about that," he said. "But how are you holding up, David?"

"Ask me tomorrow," Ebony/David said, ruefully. "A homophobic asshole tried to shoot me tonight, my fundraiser ended in total chaos, and I found out that I've been secretly under the protection of a shadowy government organization for the past two weeks. And now in exchange I'm being asked to help indefinitely preserve the cover of a couple of spies while they, what, permanently infiltrate our community?"

"Think of it as giving them one place where they can really be themselves," the Director suggested.

"The Rainbow Room is that place for a lot of people," Benjamin pointed out, squeezing Ebony's hand.

"True," Ebony said. "All right. We'll make it work somehow."

"Wonderful," the Director said, sitting back with that pleased, sated expression she wore when she'd entirely gotten her way. "Dobrinsky—it's late. Let's drive these nice people home."


	24. Chapter 24

When the limo reached Mac's building, Li Ann started to get out along with Mac and Vic.

"You can go home if you want to," Vic said to her. "I'll be with him."

She shook her head. "I'm the one who got the wound care instructions."

"I know wound care," Vic pointed out. "I've _been_ shot."

"By a clown," Mac editorialized, as he always did when Vic brought it up.

"Well, _you_ were shot by a marshmallow dinosaur," Vic retorted.

Then Mac stumbled getting out of the limo, and Vic and Li Ann both darted in to catch him.

"I'd tell the three of you to get a room," the Director said dryly from inside the limo, "but you've already got a whole apartment waiting for you. Good night." She pulled the door shut, and a second later the limo peeled away from the curb.

"So, uh," Vic looked at Li Ann. "You want to spend the night with us?"

She nodded.

"Right then," Vic said. "Let's get upstairs before Mac falls over."

"About that..." Mac said, sort of vaguely—and fainted.

"Shit," Vic yelped, but both he and Li Ann were easily close enough to grab Mac's shoulders and stop him from crumpling to the ground.

"Well, now what?" Vic asked Li Ann, with Mac dangling limp between them. "Should we take him back to the hospital?"

Li Ann shook her head. "I think it's just the blood loss," she said. "Like I said earlier, they didn't give him a transfusion. He should be resting, not walking around."

"Well, we don't have a wheelchair here," Vic pointed out. "Do you think we can carry him without hurting him?"

Li Ann looked dubious. "Let's wait a minute and see if he wakes up," she said. "Lower him to the ground, maybe?"

Vic didn't love the idea of putting Mac down on the icy concrete, but he realized that Mac was more likely to wake up if he was horizontal. So they stretched him out on the sidewalk.

It was three in the morning, and the wind was bitter. Vic felt himself starting to shiver, and he noticed that Li Ann's teeth were already chattering. Between the three of them, Mac was the only one wearing a coat—which was Vic's, of course. Vic guessed that Li Ann and Mac must have left their coats back at the club.

"If he doesn't wake up in the next sixty seconds," Vic said, checking his watch, "we're carrying him in. I'll take the shoulders, you take the feet."

Li Ann looked worried. "That could tear the stitches."

"Let me know if you've got a better idea," Vic said.

Just then, Mac's eyelids fluttered, and a moment later he was flailing, trying to roll over.

"Mac!" Vic said sharply, "Stop moving!"

"Vic?" Mac blinked hazily. "Where are we?"

"Outside your apartment building," Li Ann said, clenching her teeth to stop them from chattering. "You fainted. Do you remember?"

"Oh, uh, yeah." Mac frowned. "Was I out long?"

"Just a few seconds," Vic said. "We have to get you inside, it's freezing out here."

"Help me up, I can walk," Mac said, starting to push himself into a sitting position.

"No, we already tried that," Vic said. "Li Ann—if we link arms?"

She nodded. "Make a seat. Got it."

They grabbed each other's wrists and made a seat between them for Mac to climb onto. He looked unconvinced, but he settled himself on their arms and slung his own arms around their shoulders for balance. Carefully, staying in sync, Vic and Li Ann straightened up and then moved forward, towards the building. The effort quickly warmed Vic up so that he stopped shivering, which was nice. "How are you doing there, Mac?" he asked.

"Fine," Mac said. "This is kind of funny. You guys are really sweet. I'm not, um, too heavy?"

"You're pretty skinny," Vic said, cheerfully. "You doing okay there, Li Ann?"

"Fine," she said, though Vic could hear a bit of strain in her voice. Mac weighed about sixty pounds more than she did. "We're almost at the door."

They had to de-link at the door; Mac slithered to his feet and Vic kept a firm grip on him, hands under his shoulders to support his weight, while Li Ann pulled the door open for them.

It was a big relief to be inside the vestibule; they were out of the bitter cold at last.

"Does somebody have keys?" Li Ann asked.

"Mine are in my coat back at the club," Mac said. "It's okay, I can pick the lock."

"That's nice that you can," Vic said, "but you don't have to." He pulled his key ring out of his back jeans pocket, and handed it to Li Ann. "It's the silver one with the square head." He walked Mac through the door while Li Ann held it open, and then she re-joined them and offered her hands to Vic again.

"Really, I can make it to the elevator," Mac said.

"But you don't have to," Vic said. "Shut up and sit on our hands."

So Mac once again rode the Vic-and-Li-Ann express, long legs dangling. He reached over and pushed the up button for them when they got to the elevator.

"Actually, this is great," Mac said. "Can we do this all the time?"

"Sure," Vic said. "As long as we can take turns. I could use a relaxing ride down to the briefing room some mornings."

The elevator dinged, and arrived. They moved forward into it.

"Doing okay, Li Ann?" Vic asked again.

"Yeah," she said, a little out of breath. "Just don't ask me to banter."

"That's okay," Vic said. "Mac and I will handle the banter."

"Actually," Mac said, sounding a little strained, "It's getting dark again."

"Huh?" Vic said. The elevator was well-lit.

"Fainting," Li Ann interpreted with a yelp. Vic felt her let go of his left wrist so that she could dart her right arm out to stop Mac from slumping backwards.

"Uh, okay," Vic grunted, adjusting his hold too. "Have we got him?"

"I think so," she said, panting a little, as the elevator reached the top floor and the doors slid open.

They eased themselves out and down the hall. Mac's head was lolling against Vic's shoulder. Vic's and Li Ann's linked arms were forming a sort of cradle now, under Mac's thighs and back, with his leather-clad butt kind of hanging down in between.

"We really should have borrowed a wheelchair from the hospital," Li Ann muttered.

"In retrospect, yes," Vic agreed.

They made it to the apartment door. Mac was still out cold, so Vic shifted his grip and balance to take all of the weight, and Li Ann quickly found the right key on Vic's ring and unlocked Mac's apartment door. "Do you need me to help you carry him again?" she asked, as soon as she'd opened it.

"Yes," Vic said, "quick, he's slipping."

Li Ann got her arms around Mac from the other side and stabilized the carry as best she could. It was even more awkward than before, but they didn't have far to go; they took him straight through the apartment into his bedroom, and managed to put him down on the bed in a motion that couldn't _quite_ be described as 'dropping'.

"Jesus," Vic gasped as soon as Mac was safely sprawled flat on his back, "let's not do that again."

"When we were leaving the ER," Li Ann said, "He _swore_ he would be fine on his own feet."

"Yeah," Vic said, "I've been trying to work on that with him. That thing where he says everything's fine no matter how much it isn't."

Li Ann looked at him, rubbing her arms over the places where Vic had been grabbing her. "How's that going?"

"I mean, it's only been a couple of days," Vic said. "But—I think I'm making progress? Back in the ER he actually told me that he was dizzy and that he needed to sit down."

"No he didn't," Li Ann said. "He said that he wanted to sit down 'sometime soon'. He didn't make it sound urgent. You immediately pushed him into the nearest chair. _Then_ he put his head down and told us he was dizzy."

"Oh, right." Vic thought about it for a second. "So maybe I'm getting better at reading him? That works too, I guess."

Just then, Mac moaned.

Instantly, Vic was by his side. "Hey," he said, taking Mac's hand. "Are you with us again?"

Mac's eyes fluttered open. "What ... where am I?"

"Your bedroom," Vic said, and then put a hand on Mac's shoulder to stop his immediate attempt to sit up. "Don't get up. Just ... seriously, don't even try."

"Hang on," Li Ann said, settling herself down at the foot of the bed. "I'm going to take your shoes off. And then we should get those pants off you, too—they're covered in dried blood."

"Whose blood?" Mac asked, looking alarmed. "Are you guys okay?"

" _We're_ fine," Vic said. " _You_ were shot." He looked at Li Ann, who was easing off the second shoe. "You said he had a fever at the hospital?"

"Yeah, 39 degrees," she said. "They were worried because that's not normal for a gunshot wound. Once they realized he had the flu they said he should just go home and go to bed."

"Do you know what that is in Fahrenheit?" Vic asked. He laid his palm over Mac's forehead. He felt pretty hot, actually.

"No," Li Ann said. "Why?"

"I'm not delirious," Mac said, a bit irritably. "I remember everything. I was just confused for a second when I came to."

"When you came to after fainting for the second time in ten minutes," Vic pointed out. "I'm going to get the thermometer."

When he got back to the bedroom with the thermometer in hand, Li Ann was about 60% finished helping Mac put on a pair of pyjamas. The leather pants and Vic's plaid flannel jacket were folded, separately, on the floor.

Vic waited for Li Ann to finish with the buttons, and then he tucked the thermometer under Mac's tongue.

"There," Vic said. "Now we have three minutes where he can't talk."

Mac shot Vic a startled glare, and Li Ann smothered a quick giggle against the back of her hand.

"You can borrow a set of Mac's pyjamas to sleep in," Vic said to her.

She nodded. "I already got some out. Do you mind if I change right here, or would you rather I go to the bathroom?"

"Uh," Vic said, unprepared for the question. "Here is fine, I guess."

"Okay." She started quickly unbuttoning her shirt. It was a little worse for the wear, with brown smears of dried blood on it in places.

Vic averted his eyes before she got down to her underwear. He averted them by looking over at Mac—who was definitely watching Li Ann, with appreciation.

"Uh, give Li Ann some privacy," Vic suggested, feeling an embarrassed flush rise on his neck.

"Mmr mmmr mrb rmm," Mac said, rolling his eyes, pointedly not disturbing the thermometer under his tongue.

"Mac can watch," Li Ann said, sounding slightly amused. "I don't mind." Vic heard the rustling sound of her pulling on the borrowed pyjamas. 

"Right, sorry," he said. "You two have your ... thing."

"True," Li Ann said, "But I wouldn't mind anyway. I'm not actually shy, in case you've never noticed. I wouldn't have minded if _you'd_ watched. But anyway, it's safe for you to look now; I'm decent."

Vic looked over. And then he couldn't help snickering.

"What?" Li Ann said.

She still had the painted-on moustache from her drag performance earlier, although it was a bit smudged. Mac's black satin pyjamas were just big enough on her to make her look like a little kid in oversized clothes.

"Well, you could wash off the moustache," Vic said.

Li Ann touched her upper lip. "Oh, I'd forgotten about that," she said. "I guess I'd better; otherwise it might come off on the pillows."

 _Which pillows?_ Vic thought to wonder as she left the room. He wasn't sure exactly what Li Ann was picturing in terms of sleeping arrangements.

For a second Vic thought that Mac had started laughing, too, but then he realized that it was actually a coughing fit.

Vic rescued the thermometer and watched in concern as Mac alternated coughing and swearing, curling in around his injured side.

"Sorry," Mac said a few seconds later, after he'd caught his breath. He waved vaguely at the thermometer. "Do you want me to take that again?"

"No, that was basically three minutes," Vic said, and checked the red line. "Uh, you're at a hundred and two. Mac, were you sick all day? You didn't say anything."

"It didn't really bother me as long as I was taking the cold medicine," Mac said.

"Yeah, uh, this _might_ have something to do with why you keep fainting, too," Vic pointed out.

"Well, I was _shot_ ," Mac said, defensively.

Li Ann came back into the room, moustacheless. "Vic, you should get changed too," she said.

Vic had several changes of clothes in a duffle bag in the corner of the room, including an old t-shirt and gym pants that he used sometimes for pyjamas. (He wasn't quite at the point of claiming drawer space. But the duffle bag had been living in Mac's bedroom for nearly a week.)

He decided that after Li Ann's example, he would feel like a dork if he went to the bathroom to change. But then he couldn't help saying to her, "Uh, if you could just look the other way..."

She looked amused, but she complied.

Then Vic heard her saying, behind him, "Mac, what are you doing?"

"I've gotta get to the bathroom," Mac said.

"Okay," Li Ann said, "but don't you dare try to walk there by yourself."

Vic looked over and saw Mac slinging an arm over Li Ann's shoulders, and then letting her help him stand up.

Vic was only half-way through changing, so he just said, "If he faints again, call me and I'll come help."

"Got it," Li Ann said.

"You guys, that's not _funny_ ," Mac said, sounding offended—possibly by their arch tone.

"Well, it's sort of starting to be," Li Ann said.

"A little," Vic agreed.

The bathroom trip apparently went smoothly. When they returned, Mac was clinging to Li Ann a little less casually than he had been on the way out, and he looked pretty pale, but at least he was still fully conscious as Li Ann helped him climb back onto the bed. Vic had pulled back the comforter in the meantime.

"Vic," Mac said as soon as he was lying down, "where did you put the Valium?"

Vic gave him a sharp look. "I hid it."

"I need one."

"No you don't."

"I really fucking do," Mac said. "Remember three nights ago?"

"Uh, yeah," Vic said. That had been a hellish night. "But you were a lot sicker then than you are now. Right?"

"What happened three nights ago?" Li Ann asked, looking concerned.

"Fever, nightmares—bad combination," Vic said.

"Two nights ago it wasn't much better," Mac pointed out.

"What about last night?" Li Ann asked.

"He took a Valium after he'd been drinking," Vic reminded her sharply. "That's why I hid them."

"But I slept like a baby," Mac said.

"Yeah, and I sat up half the night watching to make sure you didn't stop breathing," Vic bit out.

Mac blinked. "You did? Vic, you didn't have to do that."

"Yeah," Vic said, "I really did."

Mac's face sort of crumpled. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"It's okay," Vic said, taking a deep breath and forcing himself not to snap at Mac. "I know you didn't. But you can't be trusted with drugs."

"You don't have to trust me," Mac wheedled. "Just give me one pill. I won't even try to watch to see where you hid them."

"No," Vic said.

"I'm sorry about taking it with alcohol yesterday; I didn't think," Mac said. "I'm dumb, I'm sorry. But I'm not on anything right now except not-enough-Tylenol. They wouldn't even give me any real painkillers at the hospital, since Li Ann apparently told them I'm a junkie."

"That's not _quite_ what I said," Li Ann noted, mildly.

At that point Mac started coughing again, trailing off when he was done into a gasping "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_."

"I'm sorry about the painkillers," Li Ann said gently, perching lightly on the bed next to him. "I only mentioned it because they were talking about giving you morphine."

"Oh, morphine would've been nice," Mac moaned.

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it?" Vic observed. He sat down on the bed too.

"Wait a second," Mac said. "The hospital was _before_ the limo ride. How did you know about the drugs?"

"We talked to the Director this afternoon," Li Ann said. "She told us then."

"Fuck," Mac moaned again. "Vic, you keep asking me to tell you how I'm really feeling. So here we go: I _need_ the Valium. I need to sleep. Please. Everything hurts. It hurts so much. It hurts when I breathe, it's like getting shot again every time I cough—and you're the one who checked my temperature, you know what the fever means, the nightmares are going to fucking eat me alive."

"Shit," Vic said. "I'm really sorry. This is going to be a rough night, and all I can say is that we're going to be here with you. You won't be alone. But now that I know that you were using heroin in prison, there is no fucking way that I'm giving you that Valium."

Mac shuddered, and then visibly tried to pull himself together. He made eye contact with Vic, and held it. "Vic," he said, in a forced-calm tone, "I am not a junkie. I was never a junkie. Did you listen to the Director's fucking story tonight? I wasn't taking heroin to get high. I mean, I _did_ get high, and that was nice, it really was, but I was taking heroin because I was trying to save up enough to kill myself. And I did. I did that. I had a plan, and the plan worked, and everything was completely under control. And then I took it all, and that would have been a beautiful way to die. It wouldn't have hurt at all."

What Mac was saying now was very fucking hard to hear. They'd heard it already second-hand from the Director, but it was so much worse in Mac's own words. Out of the corner of his eye, Vic saw Li Ann wincing and looking away. He sympathized, and sort of wanted to do the same, but Mac was still carefully holding Vic's gaze with his too-intent hollow stare. Vic forced himself to listen carefully and try to understand what Mac was trying to tell him.

"But they found me and they saved me," Mac continued, "and it hurt a lot. Really, fucking, a lot. Even more than it hurts right now. But the point is—I was never shooting up for the high, it was always part of the suicide attempt. I was doing it because I wanted to _die_. And tonight I do not fucking want to die. I want to live. I think that I've just figured out about ten extra reasons why I want to live, and you and Li Ann are all over that list, and—fucking hell, people _applauded_ for me tonight. That was so fucking amazing. And I think ... the Director just gave us permission to perform in another show if we want to?"

"It did sort of seem that way," Vic murmured, startled by that last turn.

Well, if there was anyone he'd ever met who seemed like they'd be willing to live for applause, it was Mac.

"But I don't think that I am strong enough to survive this night the way it's going to run if you don't let me take a Valium and sleep," Mac finished, his voice cracking a little at the end.

Vic thought about it.

He saw Mac's point. Or rather, he thought that he understood what Mac was trying to convince him of: that it was safe to let him have drugs if he wasn't actively trying to kill himself with them.

Vic wasn't sure that that was actually a good argument, but he had to balance it against Mac's current desperation. Mac was in undeniably rough shape tonight.

Li Ann, apparently, had been thinking similarly, because she turned to Vic and said, "I think we should give him the pill. He really needs the sleep."

"Okay," Vic said. He'd just come to the same conclusion.

He hoped it wasn't a terrible mistake.

Li Ann immediately got up and started rifling through Vic's duffle bag.

"Wait," Vic said, "I didn't tell you where I hid it."

"You didn't have to," Li Ann said, producing the bottle. "Where else would you have put it?"

"Did she just find it in the duffle bag?" Mac asked. From his position on the bed, he couldn't see Li Ann.

"Uh, yeah," Vic said. "Wait, did _you_ know they were in there too?"

"I guessed it as soon as I saw that they weren't where I'd left them in the medicine cabinet," Mac said. "Uh, I might regret telling you this someday, but: if you actually want to hide pills from me, you'd better get Li Ann to do it. You're just too predictable."

Contemplating that one, Vic went to the kitchen and got a glass of water for Mac to swallow the pill with. When he came back to the bedroom, Li Ann had already propped Mac up in a sitting position, by virtue of kneeling behind him and lifting him by the shoulders. She handed Mac one pill, Vic handed him the water glass, and Mac swallowed the dose.

"Okay?" Vic asked, taking the glass away.

"Well, it takes a quarter of an hour to kick in," Mac said. "But now I know it's coming."

"Let's lie down," Li Ann suggested.

"Are you, uh, planning on sleeping in the bed with us?" Vic asked.

"If it's okay," she said, "I'd really like to."

"I want you to," Mac said.

"Okay," Vic said, a little off balance. "I mean, that's a little unusual..."

"We did it before," Li Ann pointed out. "That one night at my apartment."

Right; Vic remembered. Two days after Michael had tried to kill Mac and had left him with a serious concussion, Li Ann had burst into tears from the relief of seeing that Mac had made it through the first forty-eight hours. And then all three of them had slept together. That night had also been interrupted by an ER visit, come to think of it, since at one point Mac had fallen out of bed and they'd been worried about bleeding in his brain. And after that when they'd gone back to bed, they'd made sure that Mac was in the middle.

"Okay," Vic said. "Mac in the middle. I take the outside. Do you want to pull the bed out from the wall? We have it pushed over like that so that Mac can't fall out of bed when it's just the two of us."

"It's fine, I don't mind," Li Ann said. She clambered around to get between Mac and the wall. "Will you turn the lights off?"

"Actually, we've been leaving them on while Mac is sick," Vic said, climbing into the bed too. "It helps with the nightmares." He eased into his usual position, lying stretched out on his side facing Mac, and pulled the covers up. Mac immediately curled into Vic in _his_ usual way, tucking his too-warm forehead against Vic's collarbone. Normally at this point Vic would sling his left arm across Mac's waist, but if he did that now he'd risk bumping against Mac's injury. Instead, Vic tucked his hand down in between them, and found one of Mac's hands to hold. Mac closed his fingers around Vic's, and squeezed.

On Mac's other side, Li Ann scooched in closer, and tucked herself in spoon-like against Mac's back. Then she gave the back of Mac's neck a series of kisses.

"Mmm," said Mac, in a happy-sounding way.

"Uh," Vic stuttered, suddenly imagining things heading in an improbable direction, "we're not—"

"Don't worry," Li Ann said quickly, sounding a little amused. "That wasn't going anywhere. I just needed to kiss him."

"Ah, okay," Vic said. It occurred to him that he was going to have to get used to that. He'd called it their 'thing' a few minutes ago. He'd known about it since Christmas, but somehow his inability to categorize it made it hard to really keep it in mind. Some part of him kept wanting to say that if they weren't having sex—and they definitely weren't, Li Ann had explained that firmly—then it wasn't really a relationship. But their love for each other was very real, and essential to their well-being. There had been a time when Vic hadn't really understood that, but he sure did now. The story that Li Ann had told Vic that very afternoon about their adolescence, and the ways in which they'd supported each other through it, had made their importance to each other crystal clear.

Vic decided that he needed to kiss Mac, too. He planted one on the top of Mac's head, which was the only part of him that he could reach without backing away. Mac's hair softly tickled Vic's lips and nose. It smelled good. Vic added a couple more kisses for good measure.

"Everybody can kiss me," Mac murmured happily against Vic's chest. "This is nice."

"But it's not going anywhere," Vic reiterated firmly.

"Obviously," Mac agreed.

"Mac," Li Ann said quietly, "I'm really glad that you're okay. I was ... scared, at the club. When you passed out."

"Sorry," Mac said.

She kissed his neck again. "Don't apologize for getting _shot_ , dummy. I just ... I wanted to tell you. I was scared. I figured that you were probably going to be okay, I could tell it was just a graze, but when you passed out and didn't wake up, I was worried. I might have missed something, another shot maybe; you might have been hurt worse than I realized. I _thought_ I was staying calm, but in retrospect I was really panicking. I was losing time—the people around me kept popping in and out of existence. I didn't even notice when the paramedics arrived. They had to pull me off of you."

"I was pretty frantic too," Vic said, since they were doing confessions. "I saw you getting loaded into the ambulance. It looked bad. And I couldn't do anything; I was under arrest."

"You were what?" Li Ann said.

"It was no big deal. I got it sorted out at the station," Vic said. "But that's why I didn't get to the hospital until right before you came out. And that whole time, I was thinking—I mean, I was trying really hard _not_ to think—that Mac might be dead." His voice cracked a little at the end, and he felt Mac's fingers tighten around his hand.

"But I'm not," Mac said, earnestly. "I'm okay."

"You _were_ dead," Li Ann interjected, suddenly tense. "For me. For a year and a half. Mac, I can't even describe what that felt like. I never want to experience that again."

"Uh," Mac said. "I _wish_ I could promise not to ever get shot again, but..."

"The job is dangerous," Vic finished for him. "We know. We all have to live with that." He squeezed Mac's hand quickly. "But you _can_ promise not to kill yourself."

There was an uncomfortably long silence. Then Vic felt Mac tucking his head in tighter against Vic's chest, and heard the partly-muffled words: "No I can't," followed by some miserable-sounding coughing.

Shit. Vic and Li Ann exchanged a worried look over the top of Mac's head. Maybe Vic shouldn't have brought that up, he reflected—but it had felt like such a safe moment. They had Mac surrounded with love and they'd _just_ told him how scared they'd both been when he'd gotten hurt.

"Why not?" Vic asked, trying to keep his tone conversational.

"You don't want me to lie to you," Mac said into Vic's chest. "So I can't make that promise yet. I just don't _know_ if everything might get to be ... too much."

Vic didn't ask what Mac meant by 'everything'. Vic was pretty sure he knew by now. The nightmares, and the memories attached to them. Mac's mother, and Michael. The fucked-up coping strategies that Michael had taught him, leaving him unable to process bad feelings without reaching for a bottle.

But actually—Mac was being honest about his feelings _right now_ , and that was important, even if what he was saying wasn't what Vic hoped to hear. And he was doing it sober.

Well, unless the Valium had already started to kick in. That was a real possibility.

"Yet," Li Ann said, cryptically. And then, more comprehensibly, "You can't make that promise _yet_. But you might be able to, someday?"

"Um," Mac said. "I'm working on it."

Vic saw Li Ann's expression transition from purely worried to partly hopeful. "Working on it how?"

At that point, Mac eased back from Vic's chest a little, so that his speech wasn't actually muffled. "Well, there's the meditation."

"Shit," Vic suddenly remembered. "I promised to go with you to the meditation centre tomorrow morning. I guess that's out."

"Meditation centre?" Li Ann asked.

"I've started going to this Tibetan Buddhist meditation centre in York," Mac said. "Well, I mean, so far I've gone once. There's an open sitting practice Sunday mornings."

"And you think that this is something that will help you?" Li Ann asked. She sounded interested, not skeptical.

"Remember Sifu Jinpa?" Mac said. "Remember what he told us that time, about what happened to his monastery?"

"Oh my God," Li Ann said, her eyes widening. "I'd forgotten about that."

It looked like they were diving straight into Tang-era-anecdote mode, and Vic realized that he'd better ask for footnotes. "Sifu who?" he said. Actually the name seemed to ring a bell, but he couldn't remember why.

"Our old maths tutor," Li Ann reminded him. "We've mentioned him before. He taught us meditation. He'd been a monk in Tibet. He got caught up in the occupation."

"He watched every adult he knew get executed by Chinese troops when he was fifteen years old," Mac added, in a harder tone. "Then he spent ten years as a political prisoner. And he told us that his meditation practice kept him alive."

"You ... didn't mention _that_ earlier," Vic observed. It certainly gave some context to Mac's belief that meditation could help him with his own struggles.

Jesus, even Mac and Li Ann's _second-hand_ stories from their adolescence were brutal and gruelling.

"I want to go to the centre tomorrow," Mac said.

"Sorry," Vic said—regretfully, because he really did want to support Mac in this—"but there's no way. You're not leaving the apartment tomorrow. I _might_ let you go as far as the couch."

"Meditation is the most low-key thing I could possibly do," Mac said. "I'm not going to pull any stitches."

"The gunshot wound isn't your only problem," Vic reminded him. "You're also sick."

"I'll take the medicine in the morning," Mac said. "It'll be fine."

"Nope," Vic said. "You're not putting any of that crap in your system tomorrow. Mac, you've been pushing yourself way too hard. You wanna think for a second about _why_ you're back to running a hundred-and-two degree fever?"

"I had to work," Mac pointed out.

"You did," Vic admitted. "And you saved people's lives tonight." Ben's, probably, and maybe more than that. As the first one to see the gun, Mac had sped up all their reactions. "But tomorrow you're going to rest, and let us look after you. I'm sorry about the meditation centre. I know it's important. But we can go next week."

"Actually," Li Ann said, "We could sit together here tomorrow for a while. The three of us, I mean. It wouldn't be the same as going to the centre, but ... it might help. I could lead it. I remember the instructions Sifu Jinpa used to give us."

"That would be okay," Vic said, encouraged. "If Mac gets tired, we can just stop."

"And if he faints," Li Ann said smoothly, "We can just sort of roll him out of the way."

Mac hunched his shoulders. "You're going to keep bringing that up, aren't you."

"For a while, anyway," Li Ann said, her lips twitching. "I love you, Mac."

She'd said it with a tone of teasing affection, which probably explained the laugh in Mac's voice when he returned an easy, "I love you too."

"And I love you too," Vic said, lightly kissing the top of Mac's head.

Li Ann gave Vic a bit of a surprised look.

"Uh, yeah," Vic said. "That's ... a thing that's happened."

"Actually, I probably should have guessed," Li Ann admitted. "The way you've been looking after him this week ... the way you've been looking _at_ him...." She made a rueful grin. "I just thought that it would take you longer than this to get completely over thinking that you were straight."

There'd been something funny about her phrasing there. "Li Ann, are you implying that you _didn't_ think that I was straight?" Vic asked, with a bit of trepidation.

Li Ann gave a warm little laugh. "Honestly, Vic? Not since the first time I watched you smouldering at Mac in the briefing room."

"What do you mean, _smouldering_?" Vic asked. But it was a rhetorical question.

"I thought he was straight," Mac murmured, sounding amused.

"I know, sweetie," Li Ann said, and gave the back of Mac's neck a quick kiss. "That's because you'd fallen in love with him and you were afraid to get your hopes up."

"True," Mac admitted.

Vic blinked, unsure how serious they were being. "Are you guys teasing me?"

"A little," Li Ann said.

"But mostly not," Mac added.

"In that case," Vic said, "I'm sorry it took me so long to get my head out of my ass."

"Huh?" Mac said.

"We could have been doing this a _year_ ago," Vic pointed out.

" _Oh_ ," Mac said. And then he snuggled in a little closer. "Well, don't worry about it." Then he yawned, and on the tail end of it added, "We're doing it _now_. And right now is ... basically perfect."

"Not to rain on your parade or anything, but I really hope that we can eventually do better than this," Vic said, bemused. "For instance, you were just _shot_. That's ... not so much a part of my ideal perfect moment."

"That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be," Mac said. "And now I'm in a Vic and Li Ann sandwich. And I'm in love with both of you. And you both love me. I don't think I've ever been this happy in my life. I feel like I'm floating."

Li Ann raised an eyebrow, catching Vic's gaze over the top of Mac's head. "Valium kicking in?" she mused.

"Sounds like," Vic said. "I think we're in a good place, though. We can all go to sleep."

"Mmm," Mac said, cuddling against Vic's chest.

"Good night," Li Ann whispered. She kissed the back of Mac's neck one more time, and then reached across him to affectionately squeeze Vic's shoulder.

"Good night," Vic returned, and closed his eyes.

He wasn't sure where this was headed, long-term. Li Ann climbing into bed with them—was it only because of tonight's drama, or would this become a regular thing?

To his mild surprise, Vic realized that he was okay either way. He didn't feel any jealousy or stress over sharing Mac with Li Ann. In fact, thinking back on the night they'd just had—it all would've been a lot harder without Li Ann.

So, for all that this arrangement was unorthodox, it also seemed pretty ideal for the three of them.

Vic thought again about Mac's happy, slightly stoned observation that he _was_ loved, and that he was _in_ love, and that this made him happier than he'd ever been—even though this had objectively been an utterly crappy day for him.

To love, and to be loved in return. God, that was all Vic had ever wanted. And now he had it. How amazing was that?

Vic smiled, smelling Mac's hair, feeling their fingers entwined and Mac's body curled in against his. He let himself feel the contentment suffusing his whole being. He'd never felt like this before.

Brimming with love, he drifted softly, gently, to sleep.


End file.
